THE  BREATH  OFGOD  WITH  MAN 


HARRIS 


la 


AN   ESSAY 
ON  THE  GROUNDS  AND  EVIDENCES 

OF 

UNIVERSAL    RELIGION. 


THOMAS    LAKE   HARRIS. 


"  He  breathed  on  them,  and  saith, 
'  Receive  ye  the  Holy  Ghost.'  " 


i^t&j  gorft  antJ  SLcnbon: 

BROTHERHOOD    OF    THE    NEW    LIFE. 

1867. 


THE    BREATH    OF   GOD 
WITH    MAN. 


er: 
eft 


UlNfAN  life  is  embosomed  in  mystery.  Man  Is 
bom  in  the  midst  of  a  veiled  labyrinth,  intricate 
and  many  chambered,  whose  long  corridors 
are  haunted  by  formidable  shapes,  larvae  and  lamia,  be- 
setting him  with  ghostly  arts,  alluring  him  Avith  deceptive 
voices,  and  tempting  him  with  fallacious  appearances. 
The  innocent  are  inexperienced,  the  cultured  almost 
universally  sophisticated,  the  devout  enslaved  by  one  or 
another  of  the  multitudinous  priesthoods  of  Christendom 
or  Heathendom,  the  irreligious  bewildei'ed  by  the  hypo- 
theses which  form  themselves  in  lurid  points  upon  the 
bosom  of  the  darkness  of  their  infidelity.  The  weak  and 
the  passive  are  drawn  in  the  train  of  hereditary,  national, 
or  ecclesiastical  forces,  as  nebulous  particles  that  float  in 
the  extremities  of  a  comet ;  while  the  powerfiil  and  apos- 
tate, according  to  their  proclivities,  conserve  existing 
disorders,  or  precipitate  destructive  revolutions.  The 
world  in  general  possesses  neither  Church,  University,  or 
Society.  The  institutions  which  tenant  their  places  serve 
but  to  occupy  the  ground  until  the  real  order  appears. 

Without  a  true  priesthood  there  is  no  organized  reli- 
gion ;  without  a  true  philosophership,  no  corresponding 
culture ;  without  a  true  heroship  or  kingship,  no  harmo- 

A    2 


4  TJic  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

nioiis,  humane  Society.  Till  these  appear,  universal 
warfare  is  the  condition  of  the  world ;  sect  striving 
against  sect,  theory  against  theory,  and  interest  against 
interest,  in  the  social  land.  The  advance  of  thought 
generates  new  antagonisms,  while  its  suppression  induces 
ecclesiastical  corruption,  intellectual  ignorance,  social 
depravity,  brutality,  and  ruin.  The  multitudes,  whether 
cultured  or  unlearned,  are  so  far  the  slaves  of  cupidities, 
that,  humanly  speaking,  there  is  no  help,  no  cure  for  this 
chronic  condition  of  affairs.  To  venture  beyond  the 
pale  of  the  recognised  parties  is  to  incur  the  penalty  of 
religious  and  social  ostracism. 

So,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  Swedenborg  stood  alone. 
It  is  melancholy  to  reflect  that  in  the  ratio  in  which, 
divesting  himself  of  the  mere  fallacies  and  fantasies  of 
the  time,  he  began  to  glow  as  a  pure  morning  star,  dis- 
pensing the  lustres  of  eternity,  he  sank  from  the  recog- 
nition of  his  contemporaries.  From  the  hour  when  he 
beheld  the  living  God,  and  talked  with  stately  troops  of 
angels,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  hopeless  wanderer  in  the 
realms  of  the  inane,  a  dreamy  seer  of  pretended  ghosts, 
the  slave  and  victim  of  a  morbid  idiocy  of  reason. 
When,  after  the  lapse  of  nearly  a  century,  the  most  pro- 
found thinkers  find  themselves  forced  to  admit  the  stu- 
pendous verity  of  his  leading  doctrines,  they  salve  their 
self-love  by  the  incredible  assumption,  that  his  thoughts 
took  form  within  the  chambers  of  a  fertile  fancy,  and 
stood  transfigured  before  the  eye  of  reason  as  a  mirage 
upon  the  rim  of  its  horizon ;  while  especially  persistent 
assaults  are  made  upon  the  verity  of  the  process  by  which 
he  unveiled  the  spiritual  significances  of  Biblical  revela- 
tion.   The  Word  to  them  stands  apparelled  in  no  such 


The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man.  5 

heavenly  splendour,  oracular  with  no  such  Infinite  Intel- 
ligence. 

The  destructive  process  goes  rapidly  on.  The  Bible 
once  shone  as  a  single  sun ;  the  historical  telescope 
resolves  it  into  belts  and  dots  of  far-scattered  nebulre ;  it 
hangs  over  the  past  as  a  fragment  of  the  milky  way  over 
the  remote  ecliptic;  and,  thus  resolved,  the  explorers 
are  left  but  to  conjecture  whether  the  remote  vapour- 
clouds  are  unstratified,  inorganic  masses,  or  mists  in  their 
wide  attenuation,  or  orbs  that  embosom  the  creations  of 
love  and  beauty  and  intelligence.  The  historical  foun- 
dations of  Revelation  are  broken  up  ;  the  tempests  beat; 
the  torrents  roll ;  the  earth  is  shaken ;  the  landmarks  are 
overthrown  or  submerged  :  the  end  has  come  ! 

Swedenborg  assumed,  d,  priori,  the  unity,  integrity, 
divinity,  and  interiority  of  the  Christian  and  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  as  was  his  duty  and  direction.  He  made  the 
Bible  primary  and  absolute,  and  all  else  subsidiary  and 
secondary.  But  the  venue  is  now  changed ;  the  world 
demands  to  know  what  is  in  Nature,  and  what  does  Na- 
ture teach,  prove,  suggest,  and  prophesy  ?  The  question 
is  not,  what  doctrines  may  be  eliminated  from  Scripture, 
but,  what  principles,  what  theories  of  universal  truth,  are 
inscribed  in  the  structures  of  the  cosmos,  in  the  proces- 
sions of  historical  events,  and  in  the  constitution  of  man  ? 
Let  us  meet  this  issue.  Let  us  show  that  here  we  have 
firm  ground,  flowing  water,  respirable  airs,  and  a  clear 
sky.  Let  the  Word  be  what  it  may,  body  or  spirit ;  the 
works  of  God  in  their  processes  are  both  letter  and  spirit, 
not  terminated  by  the  limits  of  visible,  material  substance, 
but  resting  in  the  bosom  of  infinite  ideas,  that  expand 
into  peopled  and  eternal  heavens.     If,  in  the  beginning, 


6  TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

Scripture  was  the  publication  of  Natural  Religion,  let  us 
ascertain  what  Natural  Religion  is,  and  thus  become 
believers  in  the  Scripture  that  is  not  for  one  age  or  one 
people,  but  for  all  nations  and  all  time. 

First,  is  there  a  God  ?  We  will  not  argue  the  question  ; 
neither  compliment  the  theist  or  scandalise  the  atheist. 
We  would  simply  say,  "  Children,  you  have  a  Father!  " 
Men  of  all  races,  complexions,  faiths,  look  upon  each  other, 
know  each  other,  love  each  other.  Ye  are  brethren,  all 
children  of  the  loving,  bounteous  Parent.  You  ask  where 
is  He,  and  what  is  He  ?  and  before  launching  into  such 
boundless  immensities,  we  choose  to  respond  to  the  un- 
spoken inquiry,  "Who  is  He  ?  "  Dismiss  your  prejudices 
either  against  or  in  favour  of  the  hypothesis  that  the 
historical  Jesus  was  Deity  incarnate.  Stand  erect,  for 
that  is  reason's  attitude ;  lowly,  tender,  affectionate,  for 
that  is  the  heart's  posture.  Stand  firm  to  overcome  a 
doctrine  that  is  beneath  your  human  dignity.  Stand 
sympathetic,  open,  willing  to  receive  a  doctrine  that 
manifestly  is  noble  and  exalted  and  pure  and  beautiful. 
Place  yourselves,  if  possible,  in  the  beginnings  of  history. 
Neither  hold  it  credible  nor  incredible  that  such  truth 
should  visit  you,  yet  hold  it  an  open  question  waiting  to 
be  demonstrated. 

Who  is  God  ?  We  answer,  the  Infinite  Divine  Man, 
the  All-Father  and  the  All-Mother,  embraced  in  one  All- 
wise,  All-loving  Personality.  Can  this  be  proved  7  and, 
if  so,  in  what  manner?  To  one  who  believes  in  Revela- 
tion, there  is  a  sufiicient  declaration  in  the  fact,  and  in 
the  contents  of  Scripture.  To  one  who  believes  in 
philosophies  of  infinity  and  personality,  those  philoso- 
phies convey  an  argument  that  is  deemed  unanswerable. 


The  BrcatJi  of  God  zuith  Man.  7 

To  those  who  have  faith  in  the  unseen,  the  fact  and  the 
contents  of  faith  are  vahd  conclusions.  But  ahiiost  all 
are  thoroughly  grounded  in  neither  of  these. 

Where  then  is  the  appeal  ?  Simply  here ;  if  God  exists 
at  all ;  if  God  exists  as  our  Father,  the  Divine  Man,  wise, 
loving,  mighty,  He  dwells  within  all  phenomena  as  the 
Substance  Fact,  whose  discreted  works  are  the  spiritual 
and  physical  universe.  You  do  not  breathe  of  yourselves ; 
a  vast  power  beyond  your  limited  individualism  gives 
breath.  Do  you  yearn  after  that  Unknown  One  ?  Does 
the  heart,  recoiling  from  orphanage,  seek  to  throw  its  arms 
around  its  Father's  neck,  and  drink  in  life  in  the  Paternal 
bosom  ?  Then  from  that  solid  basis  of  yearning  love,  by 
the  effort  of  the  up-gathered  being,  seek  to  press  into  His 
presence.  If  you  find  vacuity,  nothingness,  emptiness, 
there  is,  I  know  not  what, — death,  oblivion,  extinction, 
annihilation.  If  we  are  bubbles,  let  us  break  and  be 
delivered  from  the  hollowness  we  are. 

If  that  God  Is,  whom  we  declare  to  you,  you  will  find 
Him,  you  will  be  gathered  to  His  breast.  But  He,  the 
Infinite,  gives  all,  and  we,  creature  finites,  receive  all. 
He  will  breathe  into  us  while  we  are  gathered  there. 
There  is  a  physical  parturition.  Brought  forth  into  the 
bosom  of  nature,  the  lungs  opened  to  inhale  her  airs ;  the 
babe  becomes  the  conscious  resident  of  the  wonder- 
teeming  world.  But  All-Father  is  more  than  the  world  ; 
there  is  a  second  parturition,  and  nature  lifts  us  up  that 
His  breath  may  enter  us.  We  then  breathe  again,  respi- 
ring in  God,  and  as  He  gives  Himself  in  the  warm,  in- 
flowing life,  which  imparts  to  the  lungs  new  motions,  we 
experience  the  facts  of  a  Supersensual  Existence ;  the 
Living  One  demonstrates  His  direct  presence  by  direct 
inbreathing  force. 


8  TJie  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

We  will  assume  that  your  heart  is  moved  with  tender, 
springing,  struggling  affections,  all  seeking  this  unknown 
Divine  Man  ;  that  you  are  honest  in  the  determination  to 
embody  in  life  the  purest  ideals  ;  that  you  earnestly  desire, 
as  your  o^vn  good,  the  welfare  of  your  fellow-men.  You 
are  perhaps  wearied  with  the  pursuit  of  truth  in  many 
religions  ;  sick  of  the  artifices,  the  conventionalisms,  the 
hollownesses  of  our  social  life ;  pressed  upon  with  awful 
questionings  of  the  here  and  the  hereafter ;  pining  with 
the  hunger  of  the  bosom  for  living  food.  Like  the  wo- 
man of  Samaria,  you  stand  by  the  well  of  truth,  and  cry, 
"  The  water  is  deep,  and  there  are  none  to  draw."  We 
dare  to  affirm  that  One  is  beside  you  at  the  well,  who  ex- 
claims, "  Whosoever  drinketh  of  this  water  shall  thirst 
again,  but  whosoever  drinketh  of  the  water  which  I  shall 
give  him  shall  never  thirst,  but  it  shall  be  in  him  a  well 
of  water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life." 

Or  again,  you  are  like  one  craving  for  satisfying  food, 
— the  husks  of  literature,  the  petrifactions  of  science,  do 
not  appease  the  hunger  of  the  soul.  There  is  a  great 
famine  in  that  inner  land,  the  world  of  the  affections  in 
the  bosom.  Banquets  are  provided  for  the  taste,  the 
fancy,  the  reason,  the  imagination :  but  the  fathers  ate  of 
this  food  and  are  dead  ;  yet  ye  would  receive  a  satisfy- 
ing substance  that  shall  give  life  for  ever.  Here  again 
we  declare  that  One  is  near,  who  cries,  "  I  am  the  bread 
of  life.  If  any  man  partake  of  My  substance  he  shall 
live  for  ever."  But  one  says,  "This  is  allegory;  the  froth 
of  religious  sentimentalism  ;  the  exhalation  of  pietism 
grown  morbid."  We  answer,  It  may  be  so ;  but  to  the 
test.  The  affirmation  is,  that  the  living  God,  even  the 
Divine  Man,  is  both  willing  to  demonstrate  who  and 


TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  9 

what  He  is,  by  imparting  His  own  bosom  life,  descend- 
ing even  into  and  uplifting  the  whole  respiratory  frame, 
in  response  to  whole-hearted,  humble,  and  reverent  seek- 
ing of  Him. 

But  a  step  farther.  You  have  sought  and  found.  You 
are  able  to  say  one  thing.  I  do  know  that  there  is  a 
world  of  plenary  life,  beyond  the  realm  of  the  corporeal 
elements.  It  descends,  baptising  the  bosom  Avith  fires  of 
satisfying  love.  It  inaugurates  a  new  era  in  physical 
existence,  bringing  down  the  moral  into  the  plane  of  the 
sensational.  You  feel  consciously  buoyed  up  and  sus- 
tained between  tAvo  atmospheres,  one  of  ether,  bearing 
in  its  currents  the  heat  and  light,  the  joy  and  power  of 
nature ;  the  other  of  spirit,  impulsing  the  wisdom  and  the 
love,  the  soft  joy  and  exquisite  rapture,  the  penetrating 
force,  the  vivifying  essence  of  Deity.  You  have  proved 
that  the  bounds  of  material  existence  end  not  in  vacancy 
and  inanity.  God,  whom  science  discovers  not  in  the  re- 
solution of  its  nebulae,  whom  criticism  finds  not  in  the 
dissection  of  its  literatures,  is  not  afar  ofi",  but  very  nigh ; 
and  you  are  as  conscious  of  His  action,  as  the  sentient 
earth  might  be  of  the  existence  of  ocean  when  its  tides 
come  rolling  in  upon  the  shore. 

We  do  not  think  that  there  is  any  other  method  by 
which  man  can  absolutely  discriminate  between  the  God 
and  the  not-god.  Let  us  suppose  ourselves  in  some 
primeval  Eden.  The  virgin  world  is  around  us  and  the 
virgin  heaven  above.  Creation  glows  in  the  ardour  and 
the  luxuriance  of  an  unsullied  prime.  We  awaken  to 
conscious  existence  without  natural  parentage.  We  are 
the  primates  of  our  race.  We  begin  to  meditate  the  pro- 
blem of  our  origin.     We  ask,  "  Whence  came  we  ?     To 


lO  The  Br  cat] I  of  God  with  Man. 

Whom  are  we  indebted  for  these  exquisite  senses,  for 
this  opulent  frame  replete  with  accordant  faculties,  and 
for  this  bounteous  display  of  visible  food  for  eye  and  ear, 
for  taste  and  smell,  for  will  and  reason  ?" 

We  might  behold  a  being,  in  majestic  manhood,  ap- 
proaching, and  our  heart  might  go  out  toward  him ;  but 
neither  his  declaration  nor  our  assent  would  prove  him 
to  be  the  Father.  Why  ?  Simply  because  it  is  possible 
for  individuals  of  the  lordliest  genius,  yet  coiTupt  in  will, 
to  assume  all  garments  of  beauty,  to  simulate  all  tones 
of  tenderness,  for  purposes  of  deception  and  ruin.  But 
suppose  that  miracles  were  wTOught,  what  natural  mind 
could  discriminate  between  direct  acts  of  Creative  Po- 
tency, out  of  the  usual  course  of  nature,  and  magical 
operations  of  a  race  of  infernal  but  colossal  intelligences? 
The  argument  from  miracle,  resolved  to  its  last  analysis, 
breaks  like  a  bubble, 

W'hat  tlien  is  the  evidence  that  God  is  God  ?  That 
He  should  be  able  to  appear  objectively  to  sense  and 
spirit,  but  also  to  reveal  Himself  subjectively  from  His' 
infinite  imminence  within  \  descending,  so  to  speak,  from 
the  heights  of  Being  which  are  above  our  consciousness, 
and  literally  giving  Himself  to  us  by  the  procession  of 
His  life  into  our  own,  through  a  Divine  respiration ;  so 
that  we  may  feel  that  God,  who  is  our  Life,  has  come ; 
that  He  dwells  within  us,  and  we  in  Him.  We  may  dis- 
trust the  conclusions  of  the  natural  mind,  working  on 
supernatural  problems.  The  evidence,  that  satisfies  the 
affections  in  high  states  of  ecstasy,  loses  its  brilliant 
clearness  -when  Ave  return  to  the  level  plane  of  our 
habitual  life ;  but  when  the  Divine  respirations  absolutely 
inflow,  and  open  their  way  into  the  natural  lungs,  bring- 


The  Breath  of  God  tvith  Man.  1 1 

ing  each  breath  we  draw  into  subjection  to  the  circu- 
lations of  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  the  breaths  of 
the  Divine  Man,  it  is  more  than  as  if  a  Divine  Teacher 
objectively  walked  the  earth  ;  it  is  more  than  as  if  the 
apparently  dead  were  resuscitated  in  our  presence ;  for 
the  Divine  Teacher  objectively  but  represents  truth  to 
the  understanding,  and  displays  of  power  to  the  senses, 
while  subjectively  He  comes  forth,  by  His  sweet  pervad- 
ing airs,  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference  of  our 
existence. 

Here,  pausing,  let  us  notice  together  some  of  the  in- 
teresting facts  of  natural  respiration.  The  breathing  of 
the  child  is  soft,  low,  and  gentle ;  that  of  the  youth  im- 
pulsive, ardent,  impetuous ;  that  of  man  in  full  vigour 
capacious,  deep,  and  more  continuous ;  till  old  age  and 
second  childhood,  when  it  declines,  and,  with  those 
whose  days  have  been  spent  in  the  practice  of  virtue, 
seems  hushed  away  as  in  cradle  melodies ;  and  at  last, 
coming  imperceptibly,  it  closes  as  the  sound  of  the  music 
stealing  over  tranquil  oceans,  or  through  untroubled 
atmospheres,  becoming  so  imperceptibly  fine  that  the 
soothed  listener  is  hardly  aware  of  the  moment  when  it 
is  heard  no  more. 

Or,  again,  we  inhale  most  deeply  in  the  presence  of 
objects  of  natural  delight.  We  open  to  take  in  capacious 
draughts  of  the  elixir  of  the  morning,  tlae  ambrosia  dis- 
tilled in  the  sweet  breath  of  flowers  filling  the  summer 
garden  with  perfume.  The  lover  breathes  most  fully 
where  the  sphere  of  his  fair  one  dispenses  a  subtle  joy. 
The  kind  and  faithful  husband,  returning  from  the  harsh 
contentions  of  the  outer  world  to  meet  the  welcoming 
voice  of  a  pure,  devoted  wife.     And  how  fully  both  re- 


12  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

spire  together,  caressing  the  infant  pledge  of  their  fond 
endeannents,  or  watching  the  saUies  and  dehghts  of 
sportive  infancy. 

Observe,  too,  the  opposites.  The  lungs,  if  they  must 
inhale  a  tainted  atmosphere,  yet  drink  it  in  the  scantiest 
driblets.  We  hold  the  breath  unconsciously  against  of- 
fensive odours  and  poisonous  inhalations.  The  lungs 
contract,  the  breathing  becomes  difficult,  when  we  are 
with  our  rivals  and  deadly  enemies.  The  pure  woman 
holds  her  breath  at  bay  in  the  presence  of  libertines,  and 
the  chaste  man  cautiously  and  sparingly  imbibes  the 
atmosphere  that  harlots  breathe. 

Notice  further,  when  we  have  resolved  on  deeds  that 
may  affect  the  life  or  fortunes,  the  decision  is  accom- 
panied with  full,  long-drawn  inhalations  and  expirations, 
as  if  we  were  bracing  ourselves  ujd  in  the  collective  might 
of  the  powers  of  the  air.  And  again,  when  great  deeds 
are  to  be  done,  we  inhale  fully,  and  then  strike  the  blow. 
Gluttons  and  drunkards  breathe  stertorously,  but  the  re- 
spiration of  the  temperate  man  is  also  temperate  and 
chaste.  The  scholar  breathes  in  a  calm  equilibrium, 
which  is  favourable  to  the  processes  of  thought.  Men 
of  the  artistic  type  breathe  variedly,  the  respirations 
noting,  as  with  the  index  on  a  dial,  the  moods  of  rapture, 
of  doubt,  the  birth-throes  that  attend  the  evolution  of 
their  works,  the  triumphs  of  a  rich  and  exquisite  per- 
formance. The  artisan  is  graduated  in  his  respirations 
upon  a  lower  scale,  the  boor  upon  a  scale  still  lower. 
One  thinks  of  the  breathings  of  oxen  and  horses  among 
farm  labourers,  and  of  the  breath  of  swine  among  those  of 
degraded  and  stupid  characters.  The  fisherman  breathes 
dreamily,  quietly  given  up  to  the  soothing  influences  of 


Tlie  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man.  13 

the  angle ;  the  hunter  with  live  elasticity  and  bounding 
freedom. 

Observe  again  :  the  breaths  of  a  mob,  moved  by  violent 
passions,  are  themselves  a  horde  of  violent  respirations, 
whirlpools  in  air,  gathering  to  a  tornado,  and  exploding. 
Let  a  dominant  mind,  mighty  with  a  magnetic  oratory, 
succeed  in  calming  them,  and  their  breaths  subside  in 
long,  uniform  swells,  like  ocean  after  a  storm.  Men 
control  their  breaths  in  controlling  their  passions.  The 
child  vents  his  rages  in  little  stormy  gusts.  The  danger- 
ous men,  infernal  or  celestial  heroes,  breathe  as  they 
move  with  a  still  force,  the  winds  are  gathered  up  as  in 
the  hollow  of  the  hand.  In  those  caves  of  ^olus,  the 
human  breast,  the  sleeping  aerial  powers  are  evoked  by 
whatever  mightily  appeals  to  interest,  cupidity,  gene- 
rosity, hope,  love,  or  imagination.  Men  listen  Avith  ex- 
panded bosoms  when  their  favourite  object  of  desire 
flames  forth  in  stately  speech,  or  reaches  them  in  the 
might  and  majesty  of  the  singer's  voice  or  the  orchestral 
accompaniment.  But  wherever  thought  rises,  or  love 
ascends,  or  hope  mounts  above  mere  natural  thoughts 
into  a  purely  spiritual  realm,  the  thinker,  the  listener 
pass  through  corresponding  rises  of  respiration,  growing 
finer,  losing  volume,  till  at  length,  in  the  very  climax,  the 
charmed  audience  sit  with  respiration  arrested,  or  the 
solitary  thinker  for  the  moment  is  suspended  in  the  un- 
breathing  calm.  So  again  the  ecstasist  in  the  highest 
reveries  of  religious  feeling  almost  loses  connection  wdth 
the  natural  air,  and  prayer,  in  its  final  intensity,  is  accom- 
panied with  breathlessness. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that,  as  the  mind  leaves  the  pro- 
vince of  natural  things,   the  respirations   grow  feeble, 


14  The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

sharpen  themselves  away,  and  are  lost;  utter  despair 
hardly  breathes,  and  utter  faith  in  the  supreme  hour  of 
its  transfiguration  is  equally  at  its  breathing's  end.  In 
the  first  shock  of  great  sorrow,  we  fall  back,  and  the 
lungs  lose  their  hold  upon  the  atmosphere  in  a  temporary 
paralysis.  But  in  the  equal  shock  of  a  sudden  joy,  too 
great  for  the  heart  to  hold,  the  processions  of  the  breath 
stand  still.  As  a  rule,  in  the  degree  in  which  we  im- 
merse ourselves  in  corporeal  nature,  the  mere  natural 
respiration  is  ampler  and  more  vigorous,  while  going  out 
of  nature  is  going  out  of  breath.  Abnormal  mystics  in 
their  trances  retain  but  a  flutter  of  air.  Men  gasp  for 
breath  in  painful  dyings,  and  clutch  as  with  the  hand  of 
the  lungs  at  the  receding  columns  of  the  terrestrial  auras. 
But  where,  with  favourable  physical  circumstances,  those 
depart  who  are  ready  or  willing  to  lay  aside  mortality, 
depth  upon  depth  is  sounded,  mysterious  vibrations,  hints 
of  a  gentle  loosening  of  the  spirit  from  the  flesh,  and 
at  last  a  going  out  of  respiration  from  the  nostrils,  as  if 
the  spirit  slid  out  of  its  ethereal  gannent,  that  it  might 
sink,  unclothed,  into  the  bosom  of  its  God. 

The  higher,  the  new,  the  Divine  respiration,  is  totally 
different ;  or  rather,  retaining  all  that  is  of  the  lower  as  its 
base  and  fulcrum,  it  builds  upon  and  employs  it  for  its 
service.  The  good  man,  possessing  mere  natural  respi- 
ration, seeks  God  in  prayer ;  but  when  he  rises  to  heights 
of  communion  where  langnage  is  drawn  up  to  thought, 
then  thought  stilled  in  the  quietude  of  love,  there  is 
hardly  a  breath  in  the  body.  He  comes  down  from  his 
altitude,  from  lack  of  lungs  in  which  to  breathe.  The 
step  beyond  is  respiration's  end,  and  the  exit  of  tlie  spirit 
from  the  abandoned  frame. 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man,  15 

With  the  new  respiration  which  God  gives,  it  is  diame- 
trically the  reverse.  Highest  prayer  is  attended,  not 
with  breathlessness,  but  with  breathfulness ;  and  the 
nearer  we  attain  the  august  Object  of  our  worship,  in  the 
disinterested  fulness  of  our  love,  the  more  copious  be- 
comes the  river  of  that  diviner  atmosphere,  that,  pulsing 
through  the  spirit,  expands  and  invigorates  the  breast. 

There  is,  in  every  act  of  true  worship,  a  wedding  in  the 
breast,  the  heavenly  sliding  down  into  the  bosom  of  the 
earthly  atmosphere,  and  impregnating  it  with  its  own 
eternal  qualities.  This  is  the  gi-eat  point  of  distinction, 
but  the  point  is  the  centre  of  a  universal  circle. 

Again,  a  man  has  no  clue  in  his  natural  resjiiration, 
either  as  to  the  truth  or  the  falsity  of  the  conclusions  of 
his  reason  in  spiritual  things.  Channing,  in  his  rejection 
of  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  atonement ;  Stewart,  in  his 
urgent  defence  of  it ;  the  elder  Beecher,  in  his  vast  argu- 
ment against  Unitarianism;  Orville  Dewey,  in  his  learned, 
laboured  defence  and  justification  of  the  same  distinctive 
faith;  Emmons,  in  his  argument  for  stem  hyper-Calvinism; 
Dempster  or  Owen,  in  equally  striking  and  withering  de- 
nunciations of  the  dogmas  of  unconditional  election  and 
reprobation,  all  breathe  alike,  finding  nothing  in  their 
respirations,  either  of  pleasure  in  the  approach  of  pure 
truth,  or  of  pain  in  the  proximity  of  eiTor. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  respirations,  as  a  rule,  are  in 
the  channel  of  delights,  and  hence  Ballon  breathed  best 
in  arguing  that  the  fact  of  physical  death  cleansed  the 
departing  spirit  of  every  taint  of  impurity,  and  Edwards 
respired  most  deeply  when  he  pictured  earth  as  a  material 
bubble,  spun  over  the  fire  and  sulphur  of  an  everlasting  hell. 
We  cannot  wrest  from  natural  respiration  any  element. 


1 6  TJic  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

that,  cast  into  the  retort  where  doctrines  fuse  and  boil  over 
the  white  heat  of  reason,  shall,  by  their  chemical  affinities, 
absorb  and  crystallise  the  truth,  while  they  cast  out  the 
error.  We  cannot,  through  natural  respiration,  import 
any  element  into  the  brain  which  shall  disenchant  us  of 
our  worship  of  a  chimera,  or  disabuse  us  of  prejudices 
against  its  opposite  refulgent  verity.  It  works  blindly  as 
the  axe  of  the  executioner  ;  it  falls  to-day  upon  the  basest 
of  criminals,  and  to-morrow  upon  the  whitest  of  martyrs. 
If  you  load  it  with  the  fumes  of  arsenic,  it  declares  the 
presence  of  an  enemy;  but  whole  battalions  of  the  infer- 
nal simulations  and  deceits  may  deploy  their  forces  in 
the  midst  of  it,  and  it  makes  no  protest  against  their 
presence,  no  revelation  of  their ,  malignity.  If  the  rose 
breathes,  it  thrills  to  the  delight  of  its  sweetness ;  but  if 
the  fragrance  of  the  divine  elysium  of  holy  thoughts  that 
make  glad  immortals  enriches  its  vacancy,  it  gives  no 
sign  of  pleasure  at  the  gift.  It  makes  no  revelation  of 
its  tender  purity,  it  serves  all  alike,  equally  open,  equally 
reticent  concerning  all.  It  is  declarative  invariably  of 
physical,  but  not  of  hyper-physical  qualities. 

In  the  new  respiration,  God  gives  an  atmosphere  that 
is  as  sensitive  to  moral  quality  as  the  physical  is  to  natu- 
ral quality ;  the  God-pervaded  air,  for  carbon,  oxygen, 
hydrogen  and  ozone,  supplies  Divine  love.  Divine  wis- 
dom. Divine  potency,  myriform  elements,  radiant  with 
every  truth,  ardent  and  odorous  with  every  pure  affection, 
and  sensitive  to  the  approach,  the  ingression  of  the  base 
falsity,  the  depraved  lust,  as  the  quickened  conscience  is 
sensible  of  the  stings  of  evil.  This  living  atmosphere,  as 
distinguished  from  nature's  dead  atmosphere,  is  by  its 
very  presence  a  perpetual  witness,  descending  to  baptize 


TJic  Breath  of  God  zviih  Alan.  17 

the  whole  frame  more  fully  in  the  ratio  of  self-abnegation 
and  self-surrendery ;  rising  to  the  intellect  to  fill  it  with 
light  as  we  approach  the  truth,  and  rushing  with  germi- 
nant  forces  through  all  the  channels  of  the  circulations, 
while  we  open  ourselves  to  become  filled  with  purity. 

Again,  natural  respiration,  true  to  itself,  ignores  moral 
distinctions  ;  but  spiritual  respiration  recognises  all.  Na- 
tural ethers  are  destructive  or  conservative  of  life  as  the 
tissues  of  the  organism  are  healthful  or  diseased ;  they 
eat  and  corrode,  they  nourish  and  preserve,  indepen- 
dently of  the  fidelity  of  the  conscience,  or  the  purity  of 
the  affections.  The  sweet  bride  may  die,  while  the 
meretricious  woman  of  the  world  lives  on ;  and  genius 
perish,  winged  for  its  high  career,  while  imbecility  and . 
brutality  renew  for  long  days  their  vigour. 

But  the  higher  breath,  whose  essence  is  virtue,  builds 
up  the  bodies  of  the  virtuous,  wars  against  disease, 
expels  the  virus  of  hereditary  maladies,  renews  health 
from  its  foundations,  stands  in  the  body  as  a  sentinel 
against  every  plague.  It  is  the  friend  of  all  friendly 
natures,  a  father  in  protecting  care,  a  mother  in  fos- 
tering and  sheltering  sweetness,  and  mightier  as  the 
protector  of  the  system  than  a  legion  of  armed  men.  It 
restrains  the  impetuosity  of  an  excessive  zeal ;  it  over- 
comes the  inertia  of  constitutional  indolence.  It  retards 
the  hasty,  premature  flowerings  and  fruitings  of  the  intel- 
lect, which  exhaust  the  organism,  but  matures  all  noble 
growths,  at  once  preventing  excess  and  removing  sterility. 
It  is  the  great  regulative  power. 

Again,  natural  respiration  knots  and  gathers  up  the 
race  in  clans  and  parties.  There  is  a  perpetually  recur- 
ring tendency  in  families  to  discrete  themselves  from  the 

B 


1 8  TJie  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

interests  of  humanity.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  sects, 
which  are  famiUes  in  Religion,  and  of  parties,  which  are 
famiUes  in  the  State.  In  the  finer  air  these  breaths  form 
a  vortex,  rushing  into  the  lungs,  and  in  their  ascent  to 
the  brain  begetting  infatuations,  not  always  amenable  to 
reason,  not  always  to  be  exorcised  by  virtue.  Where 
mere  natural  respiration  exists,  social  harmony  is  impos- 
sible, and  in  the  highest  sense  there  is  no  Church  and  no 
State.  Men  are  drawn  together  upon  their  lower  corporeal 
levels;  they  fly  apart  upon  the  highergrounds  of  spirituality. 

Directly  opposite,  the  breaths  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  as 
they  pervade  and  encompass  the  frame,  lift  the  being 
from  the  slough  and  mire  of  the  mere  corporeal  affinities 
and  relations.  As  in  the  mind  they  separate  the  fatuities 
from  the  verities,  as  in  the  heart  they  desintegrate  the 
lusts  from  the  affections,  and  as  in  the  body  they  cast  out 
the  diseases  from  the  healths  and  sanities,  so  they  sift 
and  winnow  the  world,  breaking  up  the  magical  relations 
that,  Mezentius-like,  condemn  the  living  to  the  em- 
braces of  the  dead.  The  Family  rises  reconstructed  by 
the  attraction  and  the  consent  of  generic  types  of  men. 
The  Church  appears  in  glory,  holding  in  its  embrace  the 
human  myriads  whom  one  divine  breath  fills,  animates, 
and  unitises.  While  in  the  State,  the  true  order  of  society 
knits  itself  together  in  the  universal  relations  of  a  unitised 
and  inspired  humanity. 

In  an  era  of  mere  natural  respiration,  men  jostle,  im- 
pede, and  destroy  each  other  in  the  pursuits  of  life.  The 
business  of  existence  is  conducted  at  a  wasteful  cost. 
Colonies  perish  on  unfriendly  and  malarious  shores  j 
fertile  and  salubrious  regions  become  deserts  with  the 
horrors  of  war,  or  are  made  the  miserable  abodes  of 


TJic  Breath  of  God  ivith  Mail.  19 

barbarians.  In  other  regions,  great  cities  swallow  up 
the  life  of  myriads  who  unwholesomely  exist  and  perish 
like  infusoria  in  ulcers.  Others  must  be  the  slaves  of 
predatoiy  chiefs,  of  civilized  taskmasters,  of  the  op- 
pressors and  maladministrators  of  industry.  Competi- 
tion is  the  universal  law,  instead  of  friendly  co-operation. 

Otherwise  with  spiritual  respiration.  When  it  descends 
and  takes  possession  of  the  frame,  it  consummates  the 
adoption  of  the  just  man  as  the  child  of  the  Infinite 
Parent,  and  affiliates  him  to  the  universal  brotherhood. 
There  is  henceforth  a  guiding  power,  a  positive  inspira- 
tion, which  selects  his  calling,  which  trains  him  for  it, 
which  leads  him  to  favourable  localities,  and  which  co- 
ordinates affairs  upon  a  large  scale.  It  deals  with  groups 
as  with  individuals ;  it  redistributes  mankind ;  it  re- 
organises the  village,  the  town,  the  workshop,  the  manu- 
factory, the  agricultural  district,  the  pastoral  region ; 
gathering  human  atoms  from  their  degradation,  and 
crystallizing  them  in  resplendent  unities. 

Moreover,  natural  respiration  serves  the  ends  of  power, 
irrespective  of  virtue.  Human  colossi,  giants  of  pon- 
derous intellectual  might,  sun-like  in  the  light  and  radi- 
ation of  the  intellect,  wielding  more  than  Thor's  hammer 
in  the  downright  strength  of  the  inflexible  personality, 
exact  tribute  of  all  the  circulations  of  the  atmospheres, 
and  are  served  by  the  genii  of  their  powers,  w^hether  they 
are  builders  or  destroyers, — the  uplifters  or  degraders  of 
mankind. 

Otherwise,  when  respiration  is  from  the  great  Head 
and  Fountain  of  existence,  the  breaths  that  do  His  will 
concentrate  their  forces  on  the  natures  organized  by 
genius  for  a  composite  service,  and  consecrated  to  it  by 

B  2 


20  TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

absolute  self-abnegation.  Given  Cromwell,  he  is  a  hun- 
dred-fold the  Protector  of  the  Commonwealth ;  given 
Washington,  he  is  a  hundred -fold  the  father  of  his 
country.  Whatever  be  the  function  of  the  man,  he  be- 
comes an  embattled  host  within  himself;  out  of  weakness 
he  is  made  strong,  and  puts  to  flight  the  armies  of  the 
aliens.  Man,  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils,  is  as  the 
flower  of  the  field,  to-day  brilliant  in  the  summer  sun- 
shine, to-morrow  withered  in  the  autumn  blight.  He 
labours,  and  an  unknown  race  enter  into  his  inheritance. 
He  is  the  architect  of  an  abortive  fortune,  gathering 
possessions  from  the  universal  waste  and  anarchy  of 
man.  Others  rise  to  scatter  his  increase ;  the  fortunes 
of  individuals,  of  families,  and  of  nations  are  houses  built 
upon  the  sand ;  they  fall,  they  are  swallowed  up  in  ruin. 
In  the  divine  respiration  all  is  different.  Men,  families, 
peoples,  who  breathe  in  God,  by  Him  labour,  endure, 
achieve,  obtain  prosperity,  diffuse  the  riches  of  art, 
letters,  religion,  and  civilization.  They  execute  as  He 
plans,  and  their  work  is  permanent  on  the  foundations 
of  His  decree. 

We  have  proposed  an  ordeal  that  not  one  reader  in  a 
thousand  may  have  the  faith,  the  courage,  the  steadfast- 
ness, triumjjhantly  to  pass.  Of  these  books  there  are 
five  classes  of  readers.  The  first  peruse  from  the  love  of 
intellectual  novelty,  which  makes  them  omnivorous  de- 
vourers  of  literature.  They  are  like  those  consumptive 
persons  with  enonnous  appetites,  whose  systems  are  in- 
capable of  assimilating  the  food  which  they  receive. 

A  second  class  peruse  them  in  the  luxury  of  religious 
sentimentalism.  European  princesses  read  and  grieved 
over  the  suffering  of  the  slave  depicted  in  "  Uncle  Tom's 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  21 

Cabin,"  and  shed  luxurious  tears,  while  they  and  theirs 
were  remorselessly  grinding  down  the  poor  of  their  own 
land,  without  pity  and  without  remorse.  So  while  the 
debased  moral  nature  may  oppress  the  virtuous  principles 
of  the  heart,  the  eyes  may  be  suffused  over  the  pages  of 
a  religious  treatise,  and  the  soul  dissolved  in  a  luxury  of 
unreal  penitence. 

A  third  class  will  read  merely  for  the  purposes  of  dis- 
honest appropriation,  stealing  ideas  under  the  influence  of 
their  familiars,  in  order  to  reproduce  them  as  their  own. 

A  fourth  class  will  read  honestly,  so  far  as  they  go,  to 
ground  themselves  in  the  higher  Christian  doctrine,  but 
will  feel  themselves  incapable  of  realizing  the  blessings 
which  they  are  designed  instrumentally  to  bestow. 

A  fifth  class  will  take  them  to  the  heart,  and,  with  an 
eye  single  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the  elevation  of  man, 
will  seek  to  realize  in  themselves  a  present  Heaven. 

There  are  also  five  classes  among  those  who  will  be 
moved  to  seek  open  respiration  through  their  influence. 
First,  abnormal  pietists  and  devotees  of  the  St.  Theresa 
type,  men  and  women  of  a  diseased  religious  imagination, 
seeking  thereby  at  once  a  spiritual  soothing  and  exhila- 
ration. They  would  make  the  Lord's  breast  a  dram  shop, 
and  resort  to  it  for  the  purposes  of  spiritual  intoxication. 

A  second  class  are  parasites,  individuals  who  live  upon 
the  sympathy  which  they  extract  from  others,  evaders  of 
the  great  responsibilities,  shufflers  and  shirks  of  duty, 
seeking  to  find  in  their  vain-glorious  imbecility  the  foun- 
tains of  life  from  which  to  appropriate.  They  would 
make  the  Lord's  breath  a  sponge,  and  live  upon  it  in  an 
indolent  absorption. 

The  third  class  will  be  drawn  from  that  large  body  in 


22  TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

the  world,  who,  without  having  been  faithful  in  a  few 
things,  are  always  asking  to  be  made  lords  over  many. 
They  will  seek  it,  blinding  themselves  to  their  real 
desires,  which  are  to  enlarge  their  self-importance,  to  puft 
and  dilate,  as  the  frogs  in  the  parable,  who  sought  to  be- 
come oxen. 

A  fourth  class  will  seek  it  under  a  mistaken  sense  of 
their  advanced  conditions  in  the  regenerate  life.  Un- 
conscious Pharisees  of  doctrine,  far  astray  from  the  sim- 
plicity of  little  children  ;  such  will  desire  to  possess  it  as 
a  superb  decoration,  a  visible  crown  and  emblem  of 
righteousness. 

A  fifth  class  will  crave  it  with  the  poor  publican,  who 
dared  not  so  much  as  to  lift  up  his  eyes  to  Heaven,  but 
smote  upon  his  breast,  crying  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner."  Possessed  of  a  mortal  horror  and  hatred  of  all 
shams,  subterfuges,  sentimentalisms,  exclusive  profes- 
sions, and  bigotries;  lowly,  meek,  humble,  charitable,  self- 
deprecating  ;  hard  workers,  doing  whatever  is  given  them 
with  a  whole-souled  earnestness  ;  simple  livers,  believing 
that  the  great  object  of  life  is  the  up-building  of  sobriety 
and  thrift  and  economy  and  industry  into  human  institu- 
tions ;  persons  with  a  continuity  of  purpose,  like  the  long 
roll  of  the  ocean,  or  the  persistence  of  the  stars ;  in- 
domitable men  and  women,  who  know  not  what  it  is  to 
be  appalled,  disheartened,  and  overcome  by  difficulties ; 
such,  and  their  final  number  is  myriads  of  myriads,  will 
find  in  God's  breath  their  paradise,  and  in  His  ever- 
lasting arms  their  home. 

There  are  five  classes  of  persons  who  will  enter  into 
the  first  beginnings  of  the  new  respiration,  but  who  are 
liable  especially  to  fail  of  its  fulness  and  its  reward.   First, 


TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  23 

those  who  possess  a  certain  organic  capacity  for  taking  in 
that  Divine  hfe  which  has  already  descended  into  and 
flows  through  open  organizations ;  those  who  possess  a 
certain  goodishness  on  the  surfaces  of  character,  but  who 
are  neither  fixed  nor  deep.  They  perhaps  may  pass  as 
far  as  the  epidermis  or  scarf  skin.  When  it  begins,  a 
certain  pleasure  will  be  experienced,  and  so  long  as  there 
are  no  sensations  but  such  as  are  pleasureable  it  will  be 
desired.  These  faineant,  sluggish  souls,  made,  as  it  were, 
of  lymph  and  not  of  spirit ;  these  adipose,  moral  natures, 
when  they  find  that  every  step  requires  struggle,  sacri- 
fice, humiliation,  and  a  brave,  religious  heroism,  as  of  a 
soldier  storming  a  fortress  in  the  forlorn  hope,  or  a  rider, 
sword  in  hand,  charging  up  to  the  cannon's  mouth  and 
conquering  by  an  absolute  fearlessness,  will  gladly  hide 
themselves  again  in  corporeal  substance.  These  represent 
a  large  though  not  a  permanent  group. 

Such  should  be  dealt  with  tenderly  and  gently.  Many 
will  seek  respiration,  from  an  ignorance  of  what  its  real 
requirements  are,  and  they  will  receive  a  most  attenuated 
dilution  of  a  moral  influx,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  to 
light  their  inefficiency  and  incapacity.  In  some  instances 
it  will  work  for  good,  bringing  them,  by  a  long  series 
of  experiences  out  of  their  faint-heartedness  and  self- 
appreciation.  They  will  shed,  as  it  were,  the  snake-skin 
of  character,  and  be  found  with  a  better  interior  person- 
ality. It  is  well  to  remember  that,  though  to  the  eyes  of 
a  man  or  an  angel  their  cure  may  seem  impossible,  our 
loving  Father  has  means  in  His  medicinal  stores  that  we 
know  not  of  We  should  draw  the  mantle  of  charity  over 
their  failings,  bear  with  their  illusions^  and  even  misrepre- 
sentations, and  labour  earnestly  for  their  salvation. 


24  TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Alan. 

A  second  class  are  the  mediumistic,  the  defences  of 
whose  organisms  have  been  broken  down  by  tampering 
with  the  grave  matters  of  a  spiritual  life. 

' '  Plow  whole  of  heart,  how  sound  of  head, 
With  what  Divine  affections  bold. 
Should  be  the  man  whose  thought  would  hold 
An  hour's  communion  with  the  dead." 

So  Tennyson  most  truly  sings.  Natures  spring  up, 
rooted  in  the  filth  of  a  corrupt  civilization,  inheriting 
organically  the  crimes  of  centuries,  holding  suspended 
within  the  natural  frame  the  diseases  and  the  depravities 
of  generations ;  and  yet  not  without  a  certain  nobility  and 
generosity  of  sentiment,  which  prompts  them  to  a  chival- 
rous disregard  of  custom  and  prejudice,  a  loving  apprecia- 
tion and  reception  of  what  promises  to  be  an  outlet  into 
higher  ranges  of  existence. 

They  are  like  Mary  Magdalen,  who  was  possessed  of 
devils,  and  yet  who  sought  the  Lord.  The  seven  pro- 
vinces of  the  natural  soul  and  frame  are  invaded  by  as 
many  gross  and  infamous  spheres  of  sorceries  and  de- 
baucheries ;  yet  far  within  is  a  little  centre  of  personality, 
as  the  smallest  of  all  germs,  turning  its  infant  features 
to  the  Sun  and  Source  of  all  our  bliss ;  a  spark  of  truth, 
burning  in  the  wide  chaos  of  darkness  and  insanity ;  an 
inmost  chord  in  the  soul-harp,  vibrating  to  a  divine  pres- 
sure, while  storms  of  discord  make  a  jangling  on  every 
other  string.  God  loves  these,  loves  them  far  more,  in  a 
sense,  than  those  who  have  every  other  chord  regulated 
to  a  grand  and  rythmic  unison  from  without,  and  yet 
who  are  lacking  in  that  inmost  sensibility  and  suscepti- 
bility. They  are  as  the  harlots,  who  yet  enter  into  the 
kingdom  before  the  Pharisees. 


The  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man.  25 

It  will  be  long  before  the  Divine  respiration  can 
educe  order  from  their  chaos,  rationality  from  their 
hallucination,  purity  and  sweetness  from  their  corruption 
and  decay.  They  will  tax  the  patience  of  the  most 
patient,  and  the  faith  of  the  most  enduring  and  unwaver- 
ing ;  and  for  long  successions  of  epochs,  the  insanities 
will  seek  new  vent,  the  malady  put  on  as  many  forms  as 
those  of  Proteus.  But  O  thou  who  hast  to  deal  with 
such,  remember,  that  with  Him  we  serve,  all  things  are 
possible  :  "  A  bruised  reed  shall  He  not  break,  and  the 
smoking  flax  shall  He  not  quench  :  He  shall  bring  forth 
judgment  unto  truth."  These  represent  a  group,  both 
numerous  and  permanent  for  ages. 

A  third  class  are  the  morbidly  and  otherwise  incurably 
diseased  in  mind.  We  find  those  in  life  who  touch  us 
deeply  by  a  certain  fidelity  and  zealousness  of  affection,  but 
who  are  so  sore  in  what  may  be  called  the  natural  organ 
of  self-love,  so  sensitive  as  regards  the  evils  of  the  person- 
ality, so  possessed  of  the  spirit  of  self-justification,  so 
incapable  of  an  impartial  criticism  of  themselves,  so 
petulant,  wilful,  and  acrid  in  their  humours,  so  exacting 
of  sympathy,  so  wayward  and  erratic,  so  indisposed  to 
the  requirements  of  order,  that  they  are  an  agony  to  the 
tender  heart  which  clasps  them  to  itself.  Their  hearts 
conceal  jealousies,  and  their  minds  breed  suspicions. 
They  are  eaten  by  a  carking  care.  They  are  of  the 
class  who  lose  the  bloom  of  youth  in  a  maze  of  physical 
diseases,  who  wear  often  a  loveliness  in  the  eyes  of 
partial  friendship,  that  is  but  rarely  visible  to  those  who 
encounter  them  in  the  discomforts  and  disquietudes  of 
home. 

The  surfaces  of  the  nerves,  both  moral   and  physical, 


26  T]ic  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

are  abraded.  Like  that  woman  who  had  had  an  issue 
of  blood,  and  who  had  suffered  many  things  of  many- 
physicians,  they  seek  to  touch  the  hem  of  the  Divine 
Master,  that  they  may  be  healed.  We  are  to  bear  in 
mind,  that  "  the  whole  need  not  a  physician,  but  they 
that  are  sick."  It  is  the  glory  of  this  new  kingdom,  that 
it  takes  the  rejected,  that  it  gathers  in,  out  of  the  high- 
ways and  by-ways,  the  forlorn  outcasts  of  the  heart. 

The  march  of  respiration  is  exceeding  slow  with  these, 
for  the  tender  God  waits  upon  them,  accommodating 
His  steps  to  their  slow  gait,  their  imperfect  and  almost 
imperceptible  motions.  Let  them  be  borne  with  as  the 
mother  bears  with  her  rickety  and  epileptic  babe.  This 
class  represents,  especially  among  women,  an  extensive 
group,  and  is  also,  during  these  ages,  one  that  we  have 
always  with  us. 

A  fourth  class  may  be  styled  the  impulsive — generous, 
quick  to  take  impressions,  of  whom  we  expect  great 
things,  and  suffer  cruel  disappointments  ;  those  who  are 
subject  to  great  and  unexpected  revulsions,  the  gracious 
plants  of  whose  affections  often  blossom  at  the  first 
sunbeams  of  capricious  March,  but  whose  climate  is 
so  uncertain,  that  frosts  may  come  at  Midsummer.  They 
call  out  great  sympathies  by  a  large  instinctive  recep- 
tivity, but  are  not  to  be  depended  on,  having  little  self- 
poise,  little  capacity  for  equilibrium.  They  grow  by 
starts,  fitfully,  and  if  they  rise  where  the  stronger  attain 
but  painfully  and  slowly,  they  are  also  liable  to  fall  where 
the  weaker  maintain  their  ground.  They  are  impatient 
for  quick  results,  forgetting  that  time  is  an  element  in  the 
Divine  processes.  They  are  apt  zealously  to  assume  bur- 
dens of  which  they  weary  before  the  Divine  hour  for  their 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man  ly 

removal  lias  come,  and  to  pine  for  sympathies  which  belong 
rather  to  perfect  states  than  to  incipient  conditions. 

Judgment  must  be  acquired,  balance  won,  energy  wed 
to  patience,  and  hope  to  perseverance.  The  quick  heart, 
whose  circuits  are  those  of  the  day,  must  learn  to  time 
its  motions  by  the  pulse  beats  of  the  centuries.  This  is 
rather  a  small  group,  but  will  largely  increase. 

A  subdivision  of  this  class  may  be  styled  the  oppres- 
sively and  overbearingly  impulsive  and  generous.  Plants 
of  a  luxurious  soil,  thick  bodied,  juicy,  rank,  casting 
broad  shade,  bearing  a  positive,  astringent,  natural  fruit, 
requiring  to  be  cut  down  and  grafted  ;  those  of  a  tough 
endurance  in  the  world,  executive,  prompt,  impatient 
of  contradiction,  arbitrary,  capricious,  sometimes  grasp- 
ing, disposed  to  seize  power,  earnest,  measuring  great 
distances  with  the  eye,  but  apt  to  forget  that,  until  rege- 
neration is  complete,  man  cannot  swoop  to  an  eyrie  like 
the  eagle,  but  must  plod  with  painful  step.  Quick  and 
impetuous  in  feeling,  prone  to  violent  expression,  to  hope 
unduly,  to  despond  darkly  and  causelessly,  to  give  libe- 
rally, to  scatter  improvidently,  to  assume  position,  to  dis- 
play the  divine  grace  with  ostentation.  This  is  one  of 
the  best  of  types  when  re-wrought,  but  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  in  the  beginning ;  it  is  numerous  and  lasting. 

A  fifth  class  are  like  the  image  described  in  the  book 
of  Daniel,  with  a  golden  head  of  celestial  aptitude  and 
originality ;  a  silver  breast  and  arms  of  spiritual  discrimi- 
nation and  receptivity ;  the  brazen  loins  of  a  natural 
vigour  and  generation  ;  the  iron  limbs  of  a  vital  straight- 
forwardness, exactness,  and  steadfastness ;  the  iron-clay 
feet  of'  an  inchoate  and  half  abortive  decision,  rendering 
the  whole  man  liable  to  fall. 


28  TJic  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

Or  again,  they  are  like  a  castellated  tower.  There  is 
the  summit,  reaching  high  above  all  natural  eminence, 
furnished  with  a  sky-dome,  revealing  the  march  of  the 
celestial  constellations,  windows  for  the  sun  and  moon, 
for  the  auroral  lights,  for  the  burning  pomps  of  morning, 
and  the  delicious  beauty  and  softness  of  the  day's  de- 
cline. There  is  the  high  pavilion  of  mid-heaven  plea- 
sures, where  the  thoughts  that  climb  from  earth  stand, 
awaiting  wings  of  translation. 

Below  this,  and  still  uplifted,  is  the  huge  temple  of 
spiritual  knowledge  and  ambition.  The  breast  of  the 
house  is  there,  visited  by  the  four  winds  of  eveiy  doctrine 
from  the  whole  earth.  The  home  is  there,  with  the  cul- 
tured natures  of  every  historical  inspiration,  here  in- 
scribed with  the  letters  of  the  Alcoran,  there  grand  and 
solemn  with  the  huge  images  of  the  Shaster,  and  again 
made  holy  and  mysterious  by  the  tabernacle  and  the 
veils  and  the  winged  cherubs  of  the  Pentateuch.  The 
stately  emporium  of  the  religious  ideas  from  all  time  is 
there,  and  in  their  midst,  as  the  heroes  and  the  graces 
among  the  demi-gods,  the  processions  of  art  and  poesy, 
of  the  sciences  and  the  philosophies. 

Still  lower,  in  the  fertile  equators  and  tropics  of  the 
frame,  are  the  domestic  habitudes,  the  social  loves,  the 
delights  of  nature  and  of  sense ;  the  spirits  of  the  blood 
and  of  the  white  lymph  that  ultimate  a  third  world, 
which  bears  the  fruits  of  all  that  is  above.  Here  opens 
a  huge  department  resonant  to  all  sweet  music,  fragrant 
with  eternal  perfumes,  enriched  with  viands  for  the  last- 
ing banquet,  revealing  courts  for  the  dance  and  song, 
suggesting  cool  and  shadowed  chambers  of  repose.  Still 
below  are  massive  structures  upon  another  storey ;  the 


The  Breath  of  God  zviih  Man.  29 

work  of  the  Titans,  resounding  from  day  to  night  with 
lusty  hammer  strokes  of  Vulcan  or  of  Thor,  the  work- 
shops of  the  life's  deeds  ;  and  thus  far  avcU.  All  this 
stands  high  in  air,  but  as  the  iron  shafts  strike  down,  they 
terminate,  here  in  bituminous  slime  that  smokes  from 
a  consuming  internal  fire,  there  in  amorphous  clay, 
dinted  by  ever}^  rain  drop,  and  crumbling  alike  from  the 
touch  of  frost  and  the  dart  of  sun ;  a  foundation  running 
up  from  the  midst  of  pumice  and  ashes.  Its  whole  hu- 
man pedestal,  in  fine,  a  burning  mountain,  that  conceals 
lava  within  its  nostrils,  and  is  pregnant  with  earthquakes. 

So  stand  the  best,  the  highest,  the  broadest  of  men. 
And  still,  while  the  sky  dome  rises  higher  into  the  heights, 
and  the  breast  palace  enlarges  into  the  breadths,  and  the 
middle  galleries  take  into  themselves  the  fulnesses  that 
are  in  the  lengths  of  nature,  and  grow  pregnant  with 
their  powers,  and  while  the  cyclopean  chambers  below 
accrete  and  give  out  the  solid  force  that  is  in  the  depths 
of  the  forces  of  the  earth,  and  the  man  colossus  stands 
flaming  abroad  upon  the  world,  the  clay  foundation  bends 
beneath  the  superincumbent  burden  :  a  touch,  and  it  is 
overthrown.  It  stands  upon  the  shaking  mountain,  it 
stands  over  its  abysmal  cone, — that  mountain  the  un- 
subdued evil,  that  cone  the  reservoir  of  all-devouring  self, 
which  burns  to  lowest  hell. 

Respiration,  to  minds  who  possess,  in  germ  or  in  ex- 
pansion, such  high  endowment,  is  as  terrible  as  cruci- 
fixion; for  it  involves  the  taking  down  of  the  great  edifice, 
stone  by  stone,  the  utter  resolution  of  it  to  primitive 
constituents.  What  shall  we  say  ?  First,  the  filling  up 
of  that  crater,  the  subjugation  of  those  fires,  the  quench- 
ing of  those  burning  soils,  the  conquest  of  those  subter- 


30  TJic  Breath  of  God  ivitJi  Man. 

ranean  passages,  where  the  lava  and  the  earthquake  hide 
away;  until  the  whole  burning  mountain  becomes  a  solid 
disc  and  ponderous  iron  wheel,  set  upon  the  mouth  of 
hell,  and  sealed  over  it  by  the  Divine  decree. 

When  respiration  comes,  such  minds  are  placed  in  the 
very  whirlpool  of  temptations.  As  the  ancients  fabled 
that  it  was  death  for  a  mortal  to  see  a  god,  so  it  is  death, 
either  most  cruel  and  fatal  or  most  sublime  and  con- 
summate, for  the  man  of  genius,  of  culture,  of  affection, 
of  attainment  and  a  recognised  position,  to  embrace  the 
breath  of  God. 

To  change  the  figure, — though  Moses  were  cultured  in 
all  the  learning  of  Egypt  and  adopted  into  the  royalties 
about  its  throne,  he  must  stand  forth  as  a  Hebrew  to  the 
Hebrews,  and  go  down  from  the  very  brow  of  power  to 
share  the  lot  of  those  who  writhe  beneath  its  heel.  Yet 
when  a  certain  point  is  reached  in  the  cycle  of  experience, 
and  the  breath  flutters,  now  drawn  up  into  the  space 
above  its  natural  heaven,  and  then  heavily  drooping  to- 
ward the  dust  and  night,  there  is  but  one  of  two  alterna- 
tives, and  either  requires  an  act  of  awful  daring,  while 
the  responsibility  can  be  shared  by  none.  Either  the 
breath  of  God  must  be  taken  with  all  its  consequences, 
or  thrust  back  with  all  its  consequences.  With  such  we 
can  well  sympathise. 

It  is  easy  for  one  who  is  a  cripple  and  a  leper,  and 
even  almost  an  imbecile,  for  one  who  has  but  a  cloud  of 
personality  instead  of  a  star,  for  one  who  in  place  of 
costly  purple  wears  the  beggar's  tattered  gabardine,  whose 
very  obscurity  opposes  an  impervious  veil  to  criticism, — 
easy  for  such,  who  have  so  little  to  give,  so  much  to  re- 
ceive, to  seize  a  promise  that  opens  health  and  vigour, 


The  Breath  of  God  zvitJi  Man.  31 

harmony  and  proportion,  solace  and  enrichment,  beauti- 
ful time  and  glorified  eternity. 

The  little  twig  is  easily  uprooted  ;  it  is  the  generous 
tree,  with  tens  of  thousands  of  interlacing  root-fibres,  that 
must  shudder,  removed  from  the  endeared,  familiar  soil ; 
must  bleed  from  all  those  wounds  ;  must  ache  in  all  those 
famines,  when  its  crown  of  blossoms  is  brought  low,  and 
its  untimely  fruit  is  shaken  by  these  miglity  winds,  and 
the  knife  of  the  pruner  is  applied  where  the  branch  was 
most  luxuriant.  Is  it  not  terrible  ?  is  there  not  a  Geth- 
semane,  and  a  bloody  sweat,  and  a  prayer,  "  If  it  be  pos- 
sible, let  this  cup  pass  from  me "  ?  The  Lord  can  do 
without  such  natures  ;  but  the  question  is,  can  they  do 
without  Him  ?  Yet  such  will  come  ;  and,  if  few  as  the 
far  stars  that  come  in  sight  once  in  a  century,  they  will 
regild  their  faded  beams  from  the  very  Spirit  of  the  morn- 
ing, and  shine  for  ever. 

"  Behold,"  saith  the  Spirit,  "  I  stand  at  the  door  and 
knock.  If  any  man  hear  My  voice,  and  open  the  door, 
I  will  come  in  to  him,  and  will  sup  with  him,  and  he  with 
Me."  To  break  bread  is  the  rite  and  symbol  of  all  human 
fellowship.  It  also  is  the  symbol  of  the  Divine  human, 
the  fellowship  of  God  with  man.  We  sit  at  a  friend's 
board,  and  we  receive  the  bread  which,  earned  by  his  toil, 
is  really  an  extension  of  himself  In  eating  with  him, 
therefore,  we  eat  as  it  were  of  him ;  so  much  of  his  ple- 
nary fulness  supplies  so  much  of  our  supposed  necessity. 
Dear  Lord,  Thou  dost  give  Thyself,  descending  into  us 
by  Thy  most  holy  breath.  Thy  discreted  substance  is 
given  that  we  may  live  thereby ;  for  Thy  flesh  is  meat 
indeed,  and  Thy  blood  is  drink  indeed.  Lord,  evermore 
give  us  this  bread.     All-Father,  All-Mother,  receive  us 


32  TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

in  the  Infinite  Bosom.  We  pine  to  share  the  embraces 
that  re-create,  as  we  have  received  the  quaUties  that 
create  us.  Thou  Divine  Man,  to  whom  shall  we  come 
but  unto  Thee  ?  Thou  alone  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life. 

There  are  five  classes  to  whom  respiration  will  come 
with  power,  advance  with  vigour,  and  be  consummated 
with  comparative  certainty.  The  first  are  those  in  the 
Churches  who  mistrust,  and  at  heart  reject,  the  doctrine 
that  there  is  any  malignity  in  the  Divine  Nature.  Nine- 
tenths  at  least  of  all  the  devotees  in  Christendom  cherish 
the  conception  of  a  malignant  Deity,  cruel,  partial,  into- 
lerant, and  revengeful.  The  nominal  Christian  succeeds 
the  Jew  in  his  belief  that  God  selects,  by  arbitrary  elec- 
tion, a  people  who  are  to  share  exclusively  His  bounty. 
With  cold-blooded  complacency,  men  contemplate,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  the  damnation  of  their  neighbours,  of 
the  disciples  of  other  creeds,  and  of  the  Gentile  world. 
It  is  not  the  Calvinist's  Jehovah,  nor  the  Pantheist's  Im- 
personal Abstraction,  whom  we  are  to  approach  and  seek, 
but  the  Divine  Man.  Those  who  are  prepared,  by  the 
rejection  of  a  Divine  Tyrant,  and  by  the  intense  affection 
for  a  Divine  Friend,  who  fills,  yet  infinitely  transcends, 
earth's  fairest  ideals  of  purity,  truth,  and  love ;  those  who 
hunger  for  the  Father,  and  can  take  in  the  conception  of 
a  Divine  Humanity,  may  easily  in  course  of  time  breathe 
with  Him. 

A  second  class  are  those  whose  hearts,  in  whatever 
creed  they  are,  have  outgrown  its  theology ;  who  believe 
more  than  they  know ;  who  love  more  than  they  can 
express ;  who,  without  ability  to  evolve  a  divine  faith, 
possess  the  immense  force  of  a  concentrated  affection. 


The  Breath  of  God  tvith  Man.  33 

They  will  be  lifted  up  as  into  the  Divine  bosom,  almost 
without  a  knowledge  of  their  change,  and  rise  in  thought 
above  the  mists  of  error  when  the  sun  has  risen  over  the 
hill-tops  of  the  heart. 

A  third  class  are  exact  and  patient  thinkers,  open  to 
a  supersensual  range  of  subjects.  In  the  processes  of 
meditation,  step  by  step,  they  thread  the  labyrinth  of 
theology,  and  emerge  from  it  where  the  clear,  glorious 
light  of  Jhe  Divine  Man  shines  in  upon  the  understand- 
ing. They  perceive,  ideally  and  theoretically,  that  what 
is  here  written  must,  in  the  very  constitution  of  things, 
be  true.  The  brain,  struggling  upward  into  the  supernal 
heights  of  truth,  lifted  secretly  by  a  consonant  and  recti- 
fied will,  raises,  as  it  were,  the  lungs  after  it.  As  with 
the  former  class  knowledge  follows  experience,  so  with 
these  it  precedes  experience;  they  journey  to  the  rising, 
because  they  know  there  is  a  sun. 

A  fourth  class,  different  from  the  others,  are  born 
under  the  opened  heaven,  and  will  respire  with  a  modi- 
fied breath  of  Divinity  from  the  moment  of  birth  ;  and  a 
fifth  will  not  alone  be  born  into  the  higher  respiration, 
but  be  conceived  in  the  breath,  through  the  conjugial 
embraces  of  counterparts  in  whom  the  organism  has 
been  rectified  of  evils,  and  who  are  wholly  chaste  from 
the  first  principles  of  the  will  to  the  extreme  instincts  of 
the  sense. 

It  is  only  incumbent  that  the  recipient  shall  believe 
according  to  his  light.  Yet  truth,  absolute  truth,  as 
far  as  the  capacities  are  unfolded,  must  be  welcomed, 
adopted,  and  embodied.  We  return  now  to  the  ques- 
tion, Who  and  what  is  God  ?  When  respiration  is 
opened,  the  Hebrew,  the  Parsee,  the  Theist,  the  Christian 

c 


34  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

believer  may  know  for  themselves  that  the  Divine  Man 
is  identical  with  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  for  as  they  ask 
that  He  will  reveal  His  hidden  name,  each  will  dis- 
cover that,  if  he  thinks  that  Jesus  is  not  the  Lord,  his 
frame  will  chill,  and  the  bosom  be  oppressed  with  an 
intolerable  load ;  will  feel,  in  a  word,  that  death  is  rush- 
ing in  to  take  possession  of  him.  When  the  thought  is 
reversed,  and  the  words  rise  to  the  lips,  "  Jesus  is  that 
God,"  the  tides  of  the  Divine  Spirit  will  roll  as  never 
before,  uplifting,  illuminating,  strengthening,  and  giving 
peace.  This  then  stands  for  ever  as  the  corner-stone 
of  New-time  Theology,  God  incarnate,  the  Word  made 
flesh.  Here  the  two  heavens  of  history  and  conscious- 
ness, the  two  records  of  Creation  and  Revelation  are 
seen  as  no  more  twain  but  one.  All  revealed  religion  is 
natural,  and  all  natural  religion  revealed. 

Yet,  bear  in  mind,  it  is  not  one  of  the  three  infinites 
of  a  veiled  Polytheism  ;  not  the  second  person  of  an 
Athanasian  creed,  made  known  as  interposing  the  shield 
of  an  Infinite  pity  against  an  Infinite  wrath.  It  is  the 
Almighty  Love  in  unition  with  the  All-conscious  Wis- 
dom; it  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  Beginning  and 
the  End,  the  Almighty.  His  voice  went  forth,  while  yet 
Incarnate,  piercing  the  bosom  of  the  ages  with  the  pro- 
phecy, "  If  I  go,  I  will  come  again,  and  receive  you  unto 
Myself."  He  receded  into  the  bosom  of  mystery,  and 
from  that  mystery  the  soft,  sweet  breathings  of  His  spirit, 
inflowing  into  and  blending  with  the  respirations  of  His 
children,  declare  the  promise  verified,  the  prophecy  ful- 
filled. Many  will  say,  like  Thomas,  feeling  the  solid 
pressure  of  His  substance,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God." 
Many,  through  the  opened  heavens  of  the  spirit,  will 


The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man.  35 

behold  Him  coming  in  power  and  in  great  glory.     "  Even 
so  come,  Lord  Jesus." 

The  introduction  of  so  august  an  era  as  that  which 
with  open  respiration  is  led  forth  into  the  world,  must 
inevitably  be  attended  with  personal  struggle,  and  fol- 
lowed by  radical  changes  and  upliftings  in  all  relations ; 
as  will  be  seen.  It  is  not  attended  with  the  elevation  of 
one  sect  above  another,  nor  does  it  organize  a  new  sect 
to  shatter  and  decompose  the  old.  The  war  of  polemics 
may  be  considered,  so  far  as  the  disciples  of  a  new  order 
are  concerned,  at  its  end.  And  here  must  be  noticed  a 
distinguishing  peculiarity. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  Lord's  breath  to  incorporate 
itself  wholly  and  vitally  with  the  human  constitution, 
except  through  perfect  peace.  "  Blessed  are  the  peace- 
makers, for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God." 
Our  Lord,  arraigned  before  the  unjust  judge,  answered 
not  a  word.  The  world  little  suspects  how  deep  a  philo- 
sophy is  involved  in  this.  Every  sect  of  Christendom 
goes  forth  as  did  the  disciples  of  Islam,  bearing  the 
sword  of  controversy  unsheathed  in  its  right  hand ;  but 
this  kingdom  shall  not  be  by  violence ;  no  need  of  argu- 
ment when  it  carries  demonstration.  "  He  that  doeth 
the  will  of  our  heavenly  Father,  shall  know  the  doctrine, 
whether  it  be  of  God." 

"  Blind  unbelief  is  sure  to  err, 
And  scan  the  work  in  vain  ; 
God  is  His  own  interpreter, 
And  He  will  make  it  plain." 

Have  not  good  men  controverted  ?  Yes ;  and  law- 
fully, in  ages  of  closed  respiration.  So  good  men  sacri- 
ficed sheep  and  oxen  in  burnt  sacrifices,  typifying  a  Gift 

C    2 


36  Tlic  Breath  of  God  with  Majt. 

and  Sacrifice  to  come.  But  if  we  would  bear  forth  the 
living  breath  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  we  must  follow  in 
His  steps.  He  opened  Himself  that  the  Divine  life 
might  flow  through  His  humanity.  His  argument  was 
a  prayer  ;  His  syllogism  a  benevolence.  This  is  of  itself 
a  demonstration  of  indwelling  God  with  men,  that  a 
people  rise  who  simply  increase  by  the  opening  of  the 
bosoms  of  their  brethren  to  inhale  the  breaths  of  the 
infinite  beatitudes.  But  some  may  ask,  "  How  meet  the 
criticisms  of  ecclesiasts  and  literati?"  By  growth,  as 
flowers  grow ;  by  song,  as  birds  sing ;  by  exhalations  of 
the  life  of  Deity.  Men  are  building  a  tower,  and  critics 
gather,  one  faulting  the  materials,  another  the  plan  and 
mode  of  construction.  Why  stop  building  to  discuss  the 
chemical  affinities  of  lime  and  sand,  the  toughness  of 
iron,  the  compactness  and  durability  of  granite  ?  The 
pyramids  are  their  own  fact. 

When  the  cathedral  is  finished,  let  the  critic  stand 
amidst  its  clustered  pillars,  beneath  the  enduring  roof, 
where  the  light  of  the  lofty  oriel  flames  upon  him ;  let 
him  stand  where  piety  and  devotion  arch  broad  wings  of 
sculptures.  But  thou,  O  workman  of  God,  build  in  thy 
place,  that  thy  work  may  be  finished  with  thy  day. 
There  is  not  time  for  polemical  debate.  When  God's 
breath  begins  in  a  man,  he  becomes  a  daysman;  his 
work  is  given  him  to  do,  and  in  that  work  controversy 
has  no  part.  It  may  have  been  man's  method,  but  it  is 
not  our  Lord's.     The  work,  when  finished,  justifies  itself. 

Inapplicable  knowledge  is  a  cumbrous  load.  Only 
the  knowledge  that  subserves  the  ends  of  life  becomes  a 
working  power.  In  the  light  of  this  axiom  the  doctrine 
of  education  requires  revision.     To  become  a  perfectly 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  37 

educated  nvin,  in  the  modern  sense,  the  memory  must 
be  loaded  with  mountains  of  technicalities,  the  brain  is 
emptied  of  its  juices  in  their  acquisition,  and  exhausted 
in  the  effort  at  retention.  The  Lord  is  the  Infinite 
Educator,  and  when  respiration  is  opened  the  university 
of  a  true  culture  receives  us.  "  Know  thyself,"  was  in- 
scribed over  the  door  of  the  ancient  philosopher.  ''Know 
thyself,"  is  inscribed  by  the  Divine  Hand  above  the 
portals  of  the  mind.  The  metliods  of  the  Divine  ciiltns 
are  varied  with  every  individual ;  the  first  stages  of  the 
process  being  the  training  of  the  moral  nature  in  waiting 
upon  the  Divine  will. 

The  true  life  is  one  of  hearty,  willing,  uniform  obe- 
dience, and  it  is  only  through  that  obedience  that  liberty 
and  genuine  rationality  can  be  unfolded.  Many,  who 
abstractly  receive  the  theory  that  human  perfection  de- 
pends upon  an  absolute  regard  to  the  dictates  of  the 
Supreme  Will  and  Wisdom,  shrink  from  the  application 
of  the  doctrine  to  themselves.  Through  the  abuses  of 
ecclesiastical  and  political  government,  the  noble  senti- 
ment of  loyalty  has  withered  from  the  breast.  Obliged 
to  become  protestants,  radicals,  democrats,  spiritually 
and  socially,  from  a  stern  regard  for  the  preservation  of 
our  inalienable  rights,  the  freedom  of  conscience,  the 
integrity  of  reason,  the  harmony  of  the  affections,  it  is 
difficult  for  men  at  first  to  recognise  truths  of  equal 
sacredness ;  hierarchy,  subordination,  superiority,  class 
and  rank  and  grade. 

The  question  is  asked.  Why,  if  the  bosom  of  Infinite 
Truth  is  opened  to  each  and  all,  should  not  all  have  access 
without  a  priesthood  to  the  boundless  arcana  of  the  uni- 
verse?   Why  should  one  man  expound  doctrines,  and 


27^200 


^S  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

another  be  necessitated  to  receive  them  at  his  hands  ?  The 
answer  is  simple  and  clear.  The  boundless  variety  of  uses 
to  be  performed,  requires  a  corresponding  dissimilarity 
of  gifts  and  specialty  of  functions.  No  office  is  of  mere 
human  election.  All  stand  as  servants  before  the  Lord. 
He  gives  to  each  the  round  of  duties  by  which  the 
universal  ends  of  righteousness  and  truth  may  best  be 
accomplished. 

The  common  conception  of  Divine  illumination  is,  that 
it  prepares  the  mind  for  the  reception  of  a  cosmopolite 
intelligence.  This  is  true,  but  it  requires  this  qualifica- 
tion, that,  while  it  is  the  use  of  a  sacerdotal  genius, 
specifically  and  adequately  trained,  to  embody  divine 
knowledge  in  concrete  expressions,  minds  in  general  are 
prepared,  by  the  same  Providence,  to  read  what  is  thus 
brought  down,  with  internal  demonstrations  sealing  its 
truths.  In  the  present  condition  of  the  world,  the 
danger  is  not  that  the  outpourings  of  heavenly  doctrines 
and  illustrations  will  be  too  limited,  but  that  the  rich  fruit 
which  they  are  designed  to  ultimate  will  not  be  ripened, 
through  lack  of  heroic  application. 

Another  common  thought  is,  that  illumination  is  de- 
signed to  initiate  men  into  some  priestly  office;  in  a 
word,  to  train  them  for  pulpit  oratory,  to  organize  a  vast 
propaganda.  Here  a  core  of  truth  is  found  embedded 
in  a  matrix  of  illusion.  It  is  designed  to  initiate  men 
into  a  sacerdotal  state,  compared  to  which  prelacies  and 
papacies  are  but  theatrical.  But  how?  Ey  initiating 
them  into  a  ministry  of  strenuous  labour ;  by  making 
them,  as  the  rule,  producers  of  wealth  rather  than  con- 
sumers. It  is  to  make  of  every  manufactory  the  holiest 
cathedral ;  to  stamp  the  signet  of  divinity  on  common  life. 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  39 

The  youthful  convert  is  fond  of  hoping  that  he  may 
have  a  call  to  preach;  but  in  this  new  kingdom  that 
never  comes,  except  through  a  call  to  practice.  The 
stately  industries  of  the  future  are  in  travail  to  be  born. 
It  is  the  hand  that  is  to  be  trained,  and  the  eye  cul- 
tured, and  the  organism  made  one  harmony.  Preach- 
ing, fasts,  ceremonial  rites,  august  pageants,  rose  into  their 
conspicuous  position  to  meet  the  wants  of  a  barbaric  age. 
They  were  designed  to  stimulate  the  fancy,  to  kindle  the 
imagination,  to  subdue  the  passions,  to  awe  the  brutalities, 
to  unveil  a  futurity  which  the  mind,  depressed  into  cor- 
poreality, saw  at  best  but  dimly,  and  as  in  a  dream.  But 
when  men  dwell,  bodily,  encompassed  by  the  processions 
of  the  living  breaths  of  God,  when  they  wake  with 
morning  from  His  bosom,  and  sink  with  night  into  its 
awful  privacies,  the  mere  natural  use  of  the  rite,  the 
pageant,  is  over.  If  religious  ministrations  continue,  they 
manifestly  must  be  more  vital,  more  awful,  requiring  not 
alone  memorised  knowledges  and  kindly  sentiments. 
Of  this  more  in  another  place. 

Again,  it  is  a  common  thought  that  respiration  from 
the  Lord  will  establish  a  class  of  Theosophists  and 
illuminati,  that  a  select  circle  will  arise  devoted  to  the 
abstract  themes  of  wisdom  ;  that  reverie  will  increase,  and 
abstraction,  and  passive  contemplation.  It  is  true  that 
knowledge,  which  now  hangs  like  a  cloud  in  the  air,  will 
then  shine  as  in  the  moving  constellations  ;  but  no  know- 
ledge, except  that  which  is  fruitful,  will  be  permitted  to 
exist.  Day  dreaming  receives  its  quietus.  The  destinction 
between  the  man  of  thought  and  the  man  of  action,  the 
man  of  brain  and  the  man  of  muscle,  is  destroyed ;  and, 
so  far  from  the  stream  of  emigration  tending  from  the 


40  TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

marts  of  labour  to  the  cloisters  of  the  university,  the  school 
will  open  into  the  workshop,  and  the  palace  be  found 
but  through  the  pursuits  of  industr}^ 

The  prejudice  against  manual  labour  is,  that  it  coars- 
ens the  nerve,  deadens  the  taste,  and  abolishes  the 
higher  splendours  of  the  brain.  This  to  an  extent  is 
true,  as  regards  labour  conducted  under  the  auspices  of 
natural  respiration.  But  use  makes  the  angel !  If  the 
carpenter  labours  with  the  divine  precision  in  his  eye 
and  the  divine  cunning  in  his  hand,  who  dare  presume 
to  say  that  the  harmony  and  delicacy  of  the  frame  are 
impaired  ?  Exceptional  men,  even  now,  combine  ultimate 
toil  with  refinement  and  a  superior  intelligence ;  but  the 
divine  respiration  will  make  such  exceptions  universal. 
The  mechanical  nature  will  become  like  the  serviceable 
mountain-ridge  ;  its  rude  grandeur  beautified  with  flowers, 
its  veins  opulent  with  unsunned  gold,  and  its  summit 
glorified  with  all  that  walks  abroad  in  the  refulgence 
of  the  heavens.  Breath-labour  Avill  become  a  divine 
exercise  in  due  time,  and  every  stroke  be  accompanied 
with  as  rich  a  thrill  as  follows  now  the  touch  of  the 
organ.  But  ease,  joy,  exhilaration,  are  not  the  questions 
for  noble  men  to  consider.  The  problem  before  the 
new  man  is  the  redemption  of  the  race.  The  joy  of 
God  is  the  re-creation  of  humanity. 

We  have  found  our  dear  home, — the  bosom  of  the 
Father.  We  are  encircled  by  the  Everlasting  Arms.  The 
thought  of  life  is  divested  of  its  painful  mystery,  and 
death  is  swallowed  up  in  the  fulness  of  a  present  immor- 
tality. It  is  subjectively  a  re-admission  into  Eden.  We 
are  to  labour  that  the  harmonies  of  that  nascent  paradise 
may  attain,  within   us  and  around  us,  to  their  perfect 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  41 

bloom,  their  consummate  fruition.  The  problem  of  the 
SociaHst  is,  redemption  from  tyrannous  material  con- 
ditions ;  that  of  the  ascetic  devotee,  individual  salvation 
from  the  horrors  of  eternal  pain  ;  that  of  the  man  of 
aesthetic  culture,  the  attainment  of  individual  symmetry 
and  beauty,  irrespective  of  the  condition  of  the  race. 

Each,  doubtless,  sees  one  aspect  of  a  truth,  which  all 
fail  to  grasp  in  its  unity  and  completeness.  The  man  of 
the  new  life  finds  them  all  included  in  the  plans  of  Pro- 
vidence. The  iron  ring  of  social  exaction,  the  despotic 
pressure  of  spiritual  impurities,  the  restrictions  of  igno- 
rance and  incompleteness,  all  give  way  before  the  mild, 
persistent  workings  of  the  Divine  Genius  of  our  fates. 
He  alone  knows  what  is  the  special  archetype  from 
which  each  separate  nature  is  constructed.  He  alone 
knows  the  processes  that  are  necessary  for  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  picturesque  and  magnificent  ideal. 

The  sect  never  leads  its  subject  above  sectarism. 
Society  never  emancipates  its  subject  from  the  rigorous 
exactions  of  society.  God  alone  is  the  emancipator  of 
mankind.  His  plan,  which  embraces  cycles  of  ages  for 
its  operation,  is  physically  inaugurated  from  the  time 
when  body  and  soul,  controlled  by  one  respiration, 
rise  together  by  the  embodiment  of  one  perfection.  We 
shall  find,  as  we  become  familiar  with  the  Spirit's 
modes  of  action,  that  unexpected  potencies,  springing 
from  the  will,  work  recreative  miracles  in  the  understand- 
ing and  the  bodily  frame.  He  takes  us  as  rough  blocks, 
that  grow  to  living  statues  under  the  plastic  hand. 

But  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  real  difficulties  of  the 
case,  namely,  the  foreign  causes  operant  in  the  world, 
which   bar  the   way  to  humanitary  completeness    and 


42  J'he  Breath  of  God  ivlth  J\Tan. 

social  redemption.  The  cause  is  found,  first,  in  the 
chronic  insanities  in  the  moral  will;  second,  in  the  dis- 
ease, degradation,  and  inversion  of  the  mind  and  soul  of 
the  flesh  ;  and  third,  in  the  persistent  and  potent  efforts 
of  the  abandoned  of  all  time,  working  with  spiritual 
powers  against  the  Divine  Man.  Here  we  would  not 
dogmatise,  but  say,  as  before,  the  breath  of  Deity,  as  it 
descends,  affords  the  test  of  every  doctrine.  Reversing 
the  order  in  which  these  are  named,  we  take  up  the  sub- 
ject of  the  spiritual  obstructions  to  the  reign  of  equity 
and  peace. 

No  man  can  advance  to  any  extent  in  open  respira- 
tion, without  demonstrating  in  his  own  experience,  that 
his  every  step  is  dogged,  his  every  noble  aspiration  and 
endeavour  warred  against  by  malignant  and  subtle  intel- 
ligences. The  reverse  of  that  which  convinces  him  of 
the  Infinite  Personality  of  his  Father-friend  removes  all 
doubt  from  his  mind  as  to  the  existence  of  finite  person- 
alities, his  deadly  and  cruel  enemies.  He  may  enter  on 
this  ground  with  the  pleasing  theory  of  the  restorationist, 
but  he  will  soon  become  convinced  that,  whatever  the  final 
fate  of  his  persecutors  may  be,  their  present  condition  is 
one  of  absolute  and  fiendish  depravity ;  in  a  word,  that 
they  are  organic  hatreds  and  lusts  and  sorceries  and 
murders  ;  their  desires  are  all  evil  and  their  deeds  all 
cruel.  Deadened  in  corporeal  nature,  men  for  the  most 
part  are  sapped  in  the  vital  springs  of  the  constitution, 
and  are  imi)erilled  in  will  and  imjDaired  in  reason,  with  no 
direct  consciousness  of  the  presence  and  the  action  of 
their  foes. 

But  when  the  fire-breaths  of  the  Divine  Spirit  began  to 
permeate  the  tissues  of  the  organism,  the  physical  senses 


77^!^  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  43 

by  degrees  put  on  an  hyper-physical  character.  The  eye 
detects  the  moral  quality  in  the  beams  that  strike  the 
retina ;  the  ear  a  moral  quality  in  the  sounds  that  vi- 
brate through  the  tympanum ;  the  touch  the  moral 
quality  in  the  substances,  visible  or  invisible,  that  thrill  in 
contact  with  its  nerves.  We  are  brought,  in  fine,  into  a 
sensational  experience  of  the  Magic  of  the  Hells.  God, 
even  the  Divine  Man,  stands  in  us,  and,  by  the  mighty 
power  of  His  breath,  wars  against  this  magic.  He  trains 
us  by  quickenings  of  the  sense  to  feel,  by  quickening  of 
the  perception  to  discriminate,  by  quickenings  of  the  will 
to  combat  every  impurity.  Man's  life  becomes  the  real 
apocalypse.  We  learn,  through  combating  the  evils  that 
invade,  to  conquer  the  evils  that  dwell  within  us.  The 
valours,  the  magnanimities,  the  chastities  that  we  culti- 
vate become  new  organic  fomis  in  the  re-created  organ- 
ism. For  the  second  incarnation  of  our  Lord  is  an 
incarnation  in  the  bosom  of  humanity,  and  there  He 
comes  to  conquer  and  to  reign,  and  to  be  glorified  for 
ever  and  ever. 

We  are  all  aware  of  the  existence  of  qualities  which  are 
material,  yet  invisible.  The  latent  electricity  in  a  cup  of 
water  is  sufficient  to  explode,  and  topple  down  the  noblest 
edifice,  as  chemists  assert.  Moral  qualities  communicate  to 
physical  objects,  under  suitable  conditions,  their  specific 
elements.  Now  we  have  in  the  world  possibly  a  thousand 
millions  of  inhabitants  ;  of  these,  but  the  small  minority 
are  comparatively  chaste,  honest,  reverent,  humane. 
Each  body  is  the  theatre  where  breathe  the  enormous 
and  innumerable  cupidities  of  a  depraved  life.  Each 
moral  evil,  passing  into  act,  loses  its  latent,  and  assumes 
its  positive  character.      The  human  flesh  must,  therefore 


44  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

reek  with  a  moral-natural  corruption.  It  must  taint  the 
homes,  the  surroundings  of  the  race.  Conditions  are 
transmissible  to  offspring  ;  therefore  the  bodies  of  infants 
hold  the  seeds  of  ancestral  plagues.  Moral  qualities  are 
finitely  imperishable,  and  therefore,  for  aught  that  we 
can  discover,  the  corruption  of  hundreds  of  generations 
loads  the  effete  substance  of  the  globe.  We  are  uncon- 
scious of  it,  because  habituated  to  it. 

Why  was  Jesus  a  Man  of  sorrows,  and  acquainted  with 
grief?  Because  He  was  bowed  under  the  pressure  of 
these  world-mountains  of  depravity.  Why  do  men  ot 
purified  spirituality  cry,  in  all  ages,  "  Who  shall  deliver  us 
from  the  body  of  this  death?"  It  is  because  they  see 
that  the  concrete  physical  nature  of  man  is  gangrened 
with  decay. 

Why  do  we  kill  a  little  harmless  snake  that  crosses  our 
path,  yet  socially  court  the  friendship  of  the  imperial 
libertine  or  harlot  whose  presence  makes  Virtue  shud- 
der ?  Because  the  best  are  half  paralysed  by  the  mag- 
netism of  evil.  Why  do  the  masses  of  cultured  men 
throughout  the  world  make  a  jest  of  brutal  imi)ieties  and 
uncleannesses  ?  Because  the  balance  of  their  nature 
sympathises  with  the  multitude  of  lusts.  Hereditary 
depravity  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  whatever  be  its 
theory.  With  this  hereditary  and  well-nigh  universal 
baseness,  the  fact  that  there  is  still  an  eternal  protest  and 
reaction  against  evil,  proves  that  the  Divine-Man  is  still 
immanent  in  nature,  and  in  human  nature.  It  is  the  tes- 
timony of  noblest  spirits,  deepest  versed  in  moral  know- 
ledge, that  even  with  them  the  balance  of  their  life  turned 
to  evil,  from  which  they  were  only  saved  by  the  eternal 
solicitation  of  the  Spirit  in  the  will.     Now  the  individual 


The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man.  45 

is  bom  an  integrated  member  in  the  great  human  Com- 
monwealth. Toward  each  man  comes  rolling  the  ocean 
of  its  depravity,  with  long  swells  like  those  of  the  Atlantic 
ever  beating  on  his  shores. 

Like  ever  seeks  like.  Wherever  we  find  individuals  in 
whom  a  deep  organic  taint  and  decay  exists,  the  corres- 
ponding taint  and  decay,  whether  of  the  family  or  the 
race,  flows  toward,  centres  in,  and  pours  its  effluvia 
through  them.  These  are  the  plague-centres  of  humanity. 
As  there  are  natural  idiots  and  cretins,  so  there  are 
moral  ones.  The  plum-tree  affected  with  the  disease 
called  black  knot,  the  peach  corrupted  with  the  yellows, 
imparts  the  malady  to  healthful  plants  of  the  same  species, 
the  only  remedy  being  extirpation  ;  but  we  cannot  ex- 
tirpate the  vitiated  human  trees.  Tlie  barbarism  of  a 
vigorous  young  people  is  ameliorated  by  culture,  and  a 
few  generations  in  their  lapse,  witness  the  advent  and  the 
growth  of  civilization ;  but  an  old  people,  like  the  aged 
individual,  so  far  as  history  is  a  proof,  never  rises  again 
to  power. 

The  same  is  true  of  special  families  ;  unless  a  vigorous 
life  current  from  another  stock  is  imported,  the  new  off- 
shoots exhibit  a  growing  imbecility.  Whole  classes  in 
society  sink  permanently  below  the  types  of  average 
manhood.  We  have  but  to  ascertain  the  hereditary 
disease,  and  we  know  at  once  what  specific  streams  of 
the  world's  corruption  will  centre  themselves  in  the 
unhappy  subject.  The  hopeless  incurables  of  the  race, 
hereditarily  corrupt,  are  not  those  to  whom  the  respirations 
of  the  Lord  will  open.  For  those  not  Avilfully  and  there- 
fore irremediably  perverted,  the  spiritual  world  will  afford 
hospitals  of  cure.     It  is  to  those  who  possess,  constitu- 


46  TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

tionally,  a  fund  of  prime  vitality  that  respiration  comes. 
To  those,  in  a  word,  in  whom  there  are  organic  vessels 
for  the  reception  and  distribution  of  the  divine  auras. 
In  the  lapse  of  ages,  the  gangrened  human  constituents 
of  the  race  will  slough  off,  and  no  types  survive  but  such 
as  are  capable  of  the  highest  spiritual  and  physical 
perfection. 

In  the  beginnings  of  an  age  of  open  respiration,  the 
great  body  of  the  world's  corruption  presses  against  and 
impedes  the  restorative  effort  of  the  Divine  Man.  Each 
recipient  being  open  to  specific  veins  of  this  corruption, 
not  alone  must  he  encounter  the  breadth,  and  length, 
and  height,  and  depth,  and  fulness  of  the  physical  and 
moral  decay  within  himself,  but  also  meet  the  corres- 
ponding universal  stream  that  has  always  flowed  through 
him,  and  that  seeks  to  maintain  its  level.  Terrible  is 
the  strife  by  which  the  corruptible  puts  on  incorruption  ! 

All  thieves  in  the  world  make  organically  one  thief; 
all  murderers  one  murderer;  all  adulterers  one  adulterer; 
sharing  in  a  common  fund  of  depraved  appetite,  insane 
instinct,  and  infernal  satisfaction.  It  is  the  effort  to 
press  back  out  of  the  constitution  the  inflowing  streams 
of  moral  and  physical  corruj)tion ;  to  arrest,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  the  tidal  currents  that  circulate  in  the 
world's  depravity,  that  makes  the  battle,  in  a  large  mea- 
sure; for  organically  the  whole  body  of  the  evil  in 
humanity  becomes  our  foe.  The  individual  is  not  left  to 
himself  in  freedom  to  initiate  and  to  perfect  the  new 
conditions.  As  in  a  Despotism  the  Republican  incurs  the 
peril  of  the  dungeon  or  the  scaffold,  and  as  in  the 
oppressive  Religion  a  Protestant  is  liable  to  torture  and 
martyrdom  ;  so  the  separate  soul,  a  member  of  the  des- 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  47 

potic  constitution  of  the  race,  finds  its  organic  forces 
arrayed  against  him,  finds  himself  menaced  at  the  point 
of  every  nerve.  It  is  well  written  that,  "  Every  battle  of 
the  warrior  is  with  confused  noise  and  garments  rolled  in 
blood  :  but  this  shall  be  with  burning,  and  fuel  of  fire." 
As  the  discovery  of  open  respiration  is  greater  than  the 
first  knowledge  of  a  continent,  and  as  the  initiament  into 
its  conditions  is  greater  than  the  planting  of  a  first  colony 
upon  its  shores,  so  the  work  of  the  maintenance  and 
perfection  of  respiration  is  greater  than  that  continent's 
subjugation  and  reclamation. 

These  introductory  considerations  being  passed,  we 
may  now  unveil  the  inner  arcana  of  respiration  itself  I 
was  in  the  World  of  Spirits,  in  the  year  1859,  and  saw  a 
star  of  great  magnitude  burning  with  a  majestic  resplen- 
dence. It  seemed  an  unwonted  visitor  in  that  sky,  and 
the  usual  luminaries,  as  its  light  increased,  first  became 
dim,  and  afterward  invisible.  It  hung  midway  between 
the  horizon  and  the  zenith,  and  made  the  darkness 
luminous.  One  came  out  from  the  earth  as  through  a 
subterranean  aperture,  looked  up,  beheld  the  star,  and 
cried,  "  My  fears  did  not  deceive  me.  It  is  the  star 
that  shone  of  old  above  the  spiritual  mid-heaven,  when 
our  Great  Enemy  began  to  breathe  the  natural  air.  It  is 
the  star  of  the  Nazarene."  Another  followed  him,  and 
another.  They  were  attired  in  the  garb  of  Jewish 
priests,  and  each  seemed  possessed  of  the  madness  that 
incited  our  Saviour's  crucifixion.  After  this  they  returned 
to  their  hell,  and  a  council  was  summoned,  composed 
exclusively  of  demons  who  had  been  Israelites. 

There  are,  perhaps,  none  of  the  infemals  who  possess 
more  powerful  ultimate  bodies,  more  determined  wills, 


48  The  Breath  of  God  zuith  Man. 

more  inflexible,  long  continued  persistence  in  the  pursuit 
of  objects.  They  live  in  the  illusion  that  a  great  prince 
is  to  appear  in  the  lineage  of  David,  and  that  he  is  to 
subdue  all  nations,  and  lead  them  back  into  Palestine, 
where  they  are  to  reign  for  ever.  They  look  upon  our 
Lord,  in  their  madness,  as  the  Antichrist.  They  bound 
themselves  unitedly  by  an  oath  in  that  conclave,  first, 
that  whoever  should  desist  from  the  undertaking  which 
they  contemplated  should  be  subjected  to  a  torture 
analogous  to  internal  crucifixion;  and  second,  that 
they  would  internally  crucify  the  natural  body  of  any 
inhabitant  of  earth  over  whom  the  beams  of  that  star 
should  be  seen  to  descend  and  rest. 

They  then  passed  out  into  the  natural  world,  clothing 
themselves  in  the  invisible  emanating  corruptions  of  all 
persons  in  disorderly  connection  with  the  World  of 
Spirits.  One  wonders  at  the  fact  that  Spiritists,  as  a 
class,  reject  not  alone  the  Divine  Humanity,  but  also 
the  doctrine  of  moral  freedom  and  responsibility.  One 
wonders,  too,  at  the  rapidity  with  which  they  seem  to 
have  lost  all  power  to  believe  in  Him.  With  a  itw 
exceptions  the  truth  is,  that  they  are,  as  a  body,  inha- 
bited by  the  spirits  of  the  crucifiers,  whose  name  is 
legion,  and  who  diligently  search  throughout  the  whole 
earth  to  discover  upon  what  brows  the  star  of  Christ 
begins  to  beam.  Their  motto  is,  "  Kill  without  mercy." 
To  this  end  all  things  else  are  subordinate,  all  their 
passions  focalised,  and  their  hearts  made  a  glowing  sea 
of  rage.  Owing  to  their  gross  corporeal  peculiarities, 
they  attach  themselves  with  ease  to  human  constitutions. 
As  the  world's  riches  flow  toward  those  of  that  race  who 
inhabit  the  world,  so  the  vitality  of  the  animal  spirits. 


The  BrcatJi  of  God  ivith  Man.  49 

detaches  itself  from  the  bodies  of  men,  and  accretes 
toward  them. 

Organized  as  tribes  under  a  liigh-priest,  and  with 
armies  which  they  call  the  hosts  of  David,  they  fight 
with  magical  weapons ;  and  no  sooner  is  one  tribe  tem- 
porarily spent  than  another  hastens  to  its  position  in  the 
vanguard.  They  attack  the  organs  of  hearing  through 
magical  art,  by  which  the  dissonances  of  their  hate  and 
rage  perpetually  sound,  endeavouring  thus  to  deaden  and 
paralyse  the  understanding.  Because  the  Jews,  as  a 
people,  knew  nothing  of  conjugial  love,  and  are  inhe- 
rently and  essentially  scortatory,  they  are  able,  with  great 
violence,  as  the  swelling  waves  of  the  sea,  to  rise  against 
those  spaces  in  the  constitution  where  the  will,  as  a 
bride,  reposes  in  the  arms  of  the  understanding ;  and  thus 
mightily  they  labour  to  suppress  the  procreation  of  ideas 
and  the  descent  of  Divine  truth  into  natural  thought. 

Whenever  they  see  one  whose  thoughts  and  affections 
begin  to  move  in  the  direction  of  open  respiration,  they 
waylay  him  day  and  night ;  they  load  the  brain  with 
a  corrupt  magical  substance ;  they  invade  the  fine  space 
of  the  ear  with  deadly  sounds ;  they  cast  a  cursed  dust 
into  the  eyes ;  they  inject  noisome  efiluvia  into  the 
nostrils  ;  they  anoint  the  lips  with  secretions  of  hates  in 
the  saliva,  and  violently,  if  possible,  inject  the  very  quint- 
essence of  death  into  the  lungs.  If  those  who  have 
sought  open  respiration  are  drawn  back  into  the  vortex 
that  denies,  they  fall  inevitably  into  the  hands  of  the 
crucifiers,  who  inwardly  spit  upon  them  in  their  contempt, 
as  fools  and  apostates,  but  who  outwardly  apply  opiates 
to  conscience  and  stimulants  to  self-love. 

The  question  is  asked,  Why  does  the  Divine  Man,  our 

D 


50  TJie  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

Father,  permit  such  invasions  ?  In  answering  it  we  are 
to  bear  in  mind,  first,  that  it  is  not  by  the  force  of  the 
Omnipotent  energy,  but  by  the  power  of  Goodness, 
operant  through  Wisdom,  that  He  governs  the  universe. 
Multitudinous  reasons  will  present  themselves  as  we 
advance,  why  this  is  permitted.  In  the  meanwhile  our 
preliminary  statement  will  be  given.  To  educate  a  son, 
the  parent,  when  culture  has  advanced  to  a  certain  point, 
sends  him  out  into  the  world  to  meet  it  on  its  own 
ground,  and  to  develop  energy  from  the  stmggle  that 
ensues.  It  is  to  develop  this  energy,  to  transform  men 
into  warriors  and  heroes,  that  the  Disposer  of  events 
allows  the  rage  of  evil  spirits  to  be  manifested. 

"  Sure  we  must  fight  if  we  would  reign  ; 
Increase  our  courage,  Lord. 
We'll  dare  the  cross,  endure  the  pain, 
Supported  by  Thy  Word." 

I  was  in  the  Heaven  of  ancient  Israel  in  the  year 
1859,  and  there  witnessed  the  armies  who  are  prepared 
to  meet  upon  the  theatre  of  earth  the  demons  of  their 
own  nation.  They  are  an  exceedingly  mild  and  gentle 
people.  Their  country  is  under  the  spiritual  equator, 
where  the  air  is  moist  and  bland  as  if  tempered  by  the 
presence  of  perpetual  spring.  I  should  say  that  there 
are  three  Heavens  of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  the  one 
above  the  other,  and  respectively  celestial,  spiritual,  and 
ultimate.  In  the  lower  Heaven  they  are  excessively 
warlike,  though  so  mild  and  gentle.  This  spirit  espe- 
cially predominates  in  those  who  lived  in  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees. 

In  the  Spiritual  Heaven  they  live  much  apart,  possess- 
ing resplendent  cities,   which  they  call  defences  and 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  51 

refuges ;  they  inlay  the  ceiHngs  of  their  houses  with 
precious  stones,  and  also  decorate  with  them  the  sides  of 
the  chambers  and  apartments  of  state.  The  floors  are 
often  composed  of  silver.  It  is  their  delight  to  appear 
in  sumptuous  apparel,  which  they  frequently  change. 
Their  whole  land  is  opulent ;  were  a  covetous  man  to 
enter  there,  his  heart  would  almost  break  at  the  sight 
of  the  immense  treasures.  There  is  something  in  the 
spiritual  quality  of  this  wealth,  which  excites  upon  the 
part  of  those  who  covet  riches  with  an  evil  love,  bound- 
less cupidity  ;  yet  they  value  their  opulence  chiefly  as  a 
means  of  confemng  benefits.  Here  I  saw  one  who  was 
represented  to  me  as  having  been  that  Nathan  who  was 
a  prophet  during  the  reign  of  David,  but  David  I  did  not 
see,  nor  any  one  representing  him. 

The  criticisms  which  they  pronounce  upon  the  kings 
of  Judah  and  Israel,  are  generally  of  the  most  scathing 
character.  They  declare  Solomon  to  have  been  the 
corrupter  of  their  nation,  a  voluptuous  tyrant,  and  even 
a  magician,  a  perverter  of  influx,  a  wrester  of  sacred 
things  from  their  true  import,  a  defiler  of  the  people's 
heart ;  and  attribute  the  disasters  that  followed  his 
decease  to  the  effeminacy  and  idolatry  to  which  he  was 
given.  They  assert  that  Solomon,  during  the  latter  years 
of  his  reign,  was  in  many  respects,  a  subject  spirit ;  his 
rich,  ardent  nature,  having  been  exhausted  through  his 
enormous  libidinousness,  and  his  mistresses,  who  were 
idolatresses,  having  woven  through  his  organism  a 
magical  sphere.  So  far  from  considering  him  the  wisest 
of  men,  they  look  upon  him  as  a  shrewd,  worldly-minded 
epicure,  in  thought  as  well  as  in  morals. 

For    David    they  have   more   respect,   though   their 

D  2 


52  TJie  Breath  of  God  tuith  3 fan. 

estimation  of  him  is  one  that  would  shock  the  orthodox 
behever.  David  was,  according  to  their  words,  a  two- 
fold character ;  a  man  of  genius  who  rose  up  into  lofty 
lyric  inspirations,  and  a  besotted  gallant  who  quenched 
his  heavenly  ardours  in  sensual  indulgences.  I  asked 
the  question  of  them,  if  David  ever  had  in  their  thought 
any  idea  of  conjugial  love,  and  the  answer  was,  "  Has  a 
pig  any  ?  "  His  chief  captains  they  represent  as  banditti, 
eaters  of  the  substance  of  the  people,  violent,  bloody, 
and  unprincipled.  Criticising  character  from  this  lofty 
ethical  standard,  they  remarked,  that  their  nation  was 
organically  never  a  man,  but  only  a  wild  beast. 

Of  all  purely  intellectual  peoples,  these  Hebrews 
seemed  to  me  the  most  fiery.  The  remark  pleased 
them  when  I  made  it,  and  one  added,  "  We  are  filled, 
and  overflow  with  fire."  I  attributed  this  to  the  im- 
mediate manifestations  of  the  Word  in  their  midst,  and 
to  the  awful  veneration  in  which  they  hold  it ;  but  he 
added,  "  That  is  so."  And  yet  there  is  another  reason. 
The  Hebrew  stock  came  originally  from  the  dim  east 
of  Asia,  and  is  akin  to  the  Norseman,  to  Odin's  men. 
Another  said,  "  Yes,  by  moral  consanguinity."  The 
race  wasted  away  in  Palestine,  and  organically  was  better 
suited  for  a  hardier  land.  Their  method  of  speaking  is 
abrupt,  sharp,  and  commanding ;  their  tone  sonorous  and 
from  the  depths  of  respiration.  There  is  the  sound  of 
the  trumpet  in  their  voice. 

In  the  Celestial  Heaven  of  the  Hebrews,  are  dense 
groves  of  trees  like  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  thickets  of 
m)rrtle  and  oleander,  olive  gardens,  vineyards,  paradises 
filled  with  odoriferous  and  exquisite  flowers,  pools,  and 
fountains  of  the  most  transparent  water ;  but  so  far  as  I 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man  53 

was  aware  no  cities,  the  inhabitants  preferring  habitations 
in  little  series.  The  name  of  a  Jew  is  to  them  an  un- 
utterable abomination ;  and  on  receiving  a  guest,  they 
beseech  him  that  he  will  make  no  reference  to  the 
people  whence  they  sprang.  Nearly  all  of  the  inhabit- 
tants  were  removed  from  the  natural  earth  while  babes 
and  children,  though  here  and  there  one  perceives  a 
group  who  distinguished  themselves  below  by  valour,  con- 
stancy, and  devotion  to  the  right.  These  latter  live 
separately  in  a  measure  from  the  others,  and  in  habita- 
tions which  appear  surmounted  with  blue  domes  inlaid 
with  stars,  like  the  vault  of  the  firmament.  Unutterable 
peace  fills  the  mind  on  inhaling  the  atmosphere.  The 
Word  appears  in  the  woodland  belt  which  is  a  little 
below,  and  which  encompasses  their  Heaven,  extending 
for  many  miles  in  a  series  of  gigantic  sculptures.  I 
entered  by  a  gateway,  representing  the  ascension  of 
Elijah.  The  colossal  architecture  is  not  of  stone,  but 
of  resplendent  gold. 

These  three  Heavens  as  one,  make  war  against  the 
Hells  of  the  Hebrews  that  have  risen  to  destroy  open 
breathing  men  on  earth.  One  said  to  me  "  Saw  ye  the 
star  ?  "  I  replied  in  the  aftirmative,  and  he  answered, 
"  Here  it  was  a  sun.  The  Lord  appeared  in  the  midst 
of  it,  and  the  whole  atmosphere  of  our  Heaven  began  to 
change,  filling  us  with  a  fiery,  burning  desire  and  deter- 
mination to  turn  our  wills  towards  the  world,  and  to 
concentrate  them  there  in  opposition  to  magic." 

One  of  the  problems  of  history  is  the  inexhaustible 
vitaUty  of  the  Hebrew  race.  Without  a  national  home, 
without  leaders,  or  local  afiinities,  or  institutions ;  con- 
demned, like  the  Ahasuerus  of  the  ancient  legend,  to 


54  The  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

perpetual  wanderings,  because  it  mocked  the  Lord ;  for 
ages  subject  to  the  ban  of  social  ostracism,  it  cannot  be 
destroyed,  but  flourishes  from  the  decay  of  nations,  ab- 
sorbing to  itself  the  riches  of  every  successful  people. 
Other  nations  are  rooted  in  the  earth,  but  this  is  rooted 
in  the  bark  and  woody  substance  of  the  nations,  a 
vigorous  but  deadly  parasite.  Terribly  it  avenges  itself 
for  the  insults  and  injuries  which  it  has  received  during 
ages  of  persecution  from  the  peoples  of  Christendom, 
oppressing  the  poor  by  its  command  of  labour,  and  fur- 
nishing to  the  despots  the  ready  wealth  which  enables 
them  perpetually  to  maintain  the  standing  armies  that 
hold  at  bay  the  righteous  revolutionist  and  the  upright 
reformer. 

It  is  a  religious  Plutocracy  without  conscience,  sympa- 
thising not  with  humanity,  but  holding  itself  as  God's 
peculiar  people,  to  whom  the  Gentile  world  is  lawful 
spoil.  It  sits  in  the  antiquated  garb  of  old  tradition, 
wearing  on  its  brow  the  crown  of  sacred  revelation,  a 
massy  golden  circlet  scintillant  with  precious  stones. 
Other  nations  prosper  by  the  amenities  of  wholesome, 
industrial  toil ;  but  the  Hebrew  neither  sows  nor  reaps, 
he  traffics  in  the  productions  of  others,  and  for  this 
reason  his  prosperity  is  unwholesome  and  unreal.  There 
is  that  which  gold  cannot  buy;  unison  with  the  fine 
powers  of  nature,  liberty  in  the  fellowship  of  humanity, 
and  perfection  in  the  solidarity  of  Heaven  and  the  per- 
petual presence  and  efiluence  of  God. 

The  Hebrew  is  the  social  disintegrator,  rooting  him- 
self like  the  lasting  ivy  within  the  interstices  of  the  walls 
of  the  social  structure.  He  eats  out  the  cement  that 
unifies  the  massy  edifice,  and  forces  stone  from  stone. 


TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Mmt.  55 

His  prosperity  is  a  continual  demonstration  of  the  fact 
that  men  may  continually  thrive  by  -the  excision  of 
humanity  from  their  sympathies.  Millions  of  nominal 
Christians  are  rendered  materially  powerful,  by  assimi- 
lating to  themselves  the  corrupt  life  of  these  fallen  sons 
of  Abraham.  Still  their  corporate  existence  is  a  slow 
suicide,  in  Avhich  present  immunity  is  purchased  for  the 
baser  self,  by  the  annihilation  of  the  nobler  faculties. 

The  historical  Christ  was  instinctively  warred  against, 
while  incarnate,  by  the  Hebrew's  isolating  genius.  He 
came  to  show  the  people  how  to  die ;  how  sacrificing 
the  chimera  of  a  favoured  nationality,  whom  all  the 
world  was  to  serve,  it  might  pass  through  the  throes  and 
crises  of  a  public  self-regeneration,  and  diftuse  itself,  by 
the  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  as  a  restorative  virtue  into  the 
body  of  the  race.  No  people  as  yet  has  appreciated 
this  lesson  of  the  Master,  but  Israel  least  of  all. 

It  reaps  as  it  has  sown.  It  chose  to  exist  with  a 
barbaric  core  of  moral  Atheism,  and  a  corporate  body 
of  rigorous  exclusiveness,  an  anti-humanitarian  entity. 
It  lives  to  demonstrate  the  supreme  madness  of  its 
choice.  Yet  it  also  abounds  in  other  lessons.  Never 
has  it  ceased  to  worship  as  the  Jew  worshipped  in  his 
palmy  days.  The  successions  of  its  Rabbis  are  immortal, 
its  holy  days,  its  new  moons,  its  solemn  feasts,  its  pecu- 
liar ceremonies,  duly  commemorated,  pass  as  in  the 
bosom  of  time  from  cycle  to  cycle ;  proving  thus  that  the 
customs  of  the  institutions  and  the  priesthoods  of  worship 
may  find  a  perpetuity,  while  that  which  alone  makes 
worship  genuine,  infinite  aspiration,  infinite  endeavour 
for  the  reconciliation  of  the  race  to  the  Divine  Love, 
may  be  extinct. 


56  TJie  BrcatJi  of  God  with  Man. 

The  Hebrew  people  chose  not  merely  to  reject  the 
Incarnate  Word  as  a  Person,  but  also  as  a  sacrifice. 
They  stand  as  a  monument,  teaching  by  opposites,  what 
that  Word,  now  glorified  and  universal,  makes  obligatory 
on  the  people  who  would  receive  Him  ;  a  universal  re- 
spiratory Re-incarnation.  For  the  new  Christian  must 
be  the  opposite  of  the  inverted  Jew,  both  peculiar 
people,  but  with  traits  that  stand  revealed  in  the  most 
infinite  antagonism.  It  may  be  said  here,  by  the  ob- 
jector, that  the  Jew  brings  prosperity,  that  his  banish- 
ment fi-om  Spain  brought  impoverishment,  and  his 
emigration  into  western  Europe  enhanced  industry  and 
increased  opulence.     These  were  eddies  in  the  stream. 

The  banishment  of  the  Spanish  Jew  was  but  part  of  a 
system  of  false  political  economy  that  wrought  ruin  in  all 
its  parts.  Moreover,  the  Jew  was  then  more  of  an  in- 
dustrialist than  now.  It  may  be  said  also,  and  with 
truth,  that  in  all  time  Israelites  have  exhibited  truly 
humane,  that  is,  truly  Christian  characteristics.  This 
we  admit,  but  as  exceptional.  Into  the  bosom  of  the 
inverted  Hebrew  race  the  spirit  opposed  to  Christianity 
slides  as  naturally  as  water  into  its  channels ;  as  a  cor- 
poreity it  perpetually  repeats  our  Saviour's  crucifixion. 
Its  surface  morals  may  be  higher  than  those  of  an  ordi- 
nary civilized  community,  but  in  its  spirit  it  traverses 
the  lower,  the  infernal  plane,  representing  the  counter- 
movement  which  opposes  the  introduction  of  divine  har- 
mony. It  does  not  proselyte  by  a  propaganda.  The 
spectacle  of  a  born  Christian  embracing  Judaism  is  rare 
indeed.  It  conc^uers  as  the  plague  does,  by  insinuating 
an  almost  palpable  element,  poisoning  the  world's  morals 
in  their  deepest  seat. 


The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man.  57 

The  spirit  that  entered  into  the  Jewish  race  when  it 
strove  to  annihilate  the  Incarnate  Gospel,  has  never 
forsaken  it ;  all  its  successive  historical  acts  being  the 
evolutions  of  one  continuity.  The  Christian  sects  pre- 
serve the  worst  features  of  its  barbarous  monotheism, 
and  the  beautiful  and  fragrant  gospels  are  misinterpreted, 
as  the  Talmudists  reversed  the  meaning  of  the  ancient 
prophecies.  In  many  respects,  indeed,  the  creeds  received 
by  the  bigoted  masses  are  cruel  beyond  the  conceptions 
of  the  Pharisees.  Christendom  shifts  and  changes,  but 
Judaism  remains  immovable.  It  chills  the  living,  glow- 
ing, generous  instincts  of  quickened  peoples  and  natures, 
as  the  dwellers  in  a  habitation  are  rendered  cold  and 
melancholy  by  the  presence  of  a  corpse  within  the  doors. 

The  Jewish  time-conception  of  God's  plan  of  govern- 
ment, carried  beyond  the  grave,  and  made  an  eternity- 
conception,  is  the  victorious  creed  which  everywhere 
conquers  opposing  religious  nationalities,  and  reduces 
solid  walls  of  men  to  powder  and  atoms.  The  most 
eminent  of  American  preachers  has  said,  "  Give  me  a 
Love,  and  even  in  the  churches  but  few  will  rally  around 
it ;  but  give  me  a  Hate,  and  millions  will  rally  to  my 
standard."  This  is  so.  Islam  conquered  by  the  offer  of 
paradise  to  the  believer,  and  the  inexorable  doom  of  Ge- 
henna to  the  enemy.  Those  Christian  sects  which  have 
inscribed  upon  their  banners,  "  Eternal  salvation  to  the 
convert,  eternal  damnation  to  everybody  else,"  have 
swept  continents,  and  carried  the  fire  and  sword  of  doc- 
trine from  Britain  to  India. 

Religious  teachers  of  an  opposite  thought,  who  have 
made  salvation  equivalent  to  love,  purity,  harmony,  per- 
sonal sweetness,  fidelity  to  the  loftiest  ideals,  have  met 


58  The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

with  but  narrow  acceptance,  and  have  never  succeeded 
in  building  up  a  dominant  power.  The  sterner  sects  are 
entrenched  in  the  native  ferocity  of  man.  Christendom 
itself  would  crumble  in  the  successful  effort  to  introduce 
the  doctrine  that  eternal  salvation  is  conditioned,  not  on 
favouritism  but  on  human  worth.  As  agent  and  re-agent, 
the  inverted  Hebraism  and  the  prevalent  theological  form 
of  Christendom  sustain  vital  relations.  Inside  of  the 
Christian's  idea  of  a  Saviour  are  the  stern,  terrific  features 
of  the  barbarian  Hebraic  conception  of  God  ;  the  idea 
which  our  Lord  came  to  abolish  when  He  revealed  the 
Universal  Father.  The  minorities  in  the  great  sects  hold 
different  views,  and  painfully  endeavour  to  accept  the 
doctrinal  standards  with  an  accommodated  interpretation. 
Language  is  indeed  so  flexible  that  with  sufficient  inge- 
nuity it  may  be  twisted  into  almost  any  form. 

Yet  Christendom  is  like  Mount  Hecla,  covered  with 
snow  above,  and  pumice  and  scoria  and  thick-ribbed 
ice;  but  within,  the  molten  elements  that  heave  upon 
the  planet's  inner  fiery  heart.  Christ  came  into  the 
world  and  left  His  Spirit  in  the  bosom  of  a  great 
body  of  believers.  They  soon  chilled  as  the  world 
chilled  at  the  close  of  its  tertiary  age.  Belts  of  hea- 
venly bloom,  that  once  wove  their  laughing,  fragrant 
circles  to  the  poles,  contracted  with  the  increasing  cold 
of  ages,  till  winter  led  its  squadrons  to  the  very  equator. 
Whoever  presses  his  bosom  against  the  heart  of  any  sect 
finds  it  cold  as  ice.  We  are  to  look  within,  and  there  in- 
sight may  discover  the  fire  that  holds  the  seeds  of  life. 
As,  after  this  geological  frost  epoch,  the  earth  re-acted 
against  its  chill,  so  even  now  the  frost  epoch  of  Christen- 
dom is  melted  by  the  first  beams  of  a  directer  sun.    The 


The  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man.  59 

breath  of  God  plays  upon  the  bosom,  and  the  Divine  fire 
bursts  forth  to  dissipate  the  cold  of  ages. 

The  Hebrew,  as  to  his  humanitary  instincts,  lives  in  a 
perpetual  chill.  I  once  saw  this  illustration ;  a  bird  was 
singing  from  the  affections  of  unity  and  solidarity,  by 
which  men  are  gathered  at  once  into  the  bosom  of  God, 
the  health  of  nature,  and  the  fraternity  of  the  race.  It 
was  in  the  Celestial  Heaven  of  the  Hebrews  that  this 
exquisite  creature  poured  forth  its  lay,  and  the  notes 
sounded  far  and  wide,  awakening  a  whispering  chorus  in 
the  tender  flowers.  An  angel  called  tlie  bird,  which 
came  fluttering  into  his  breast,  and  then  caused  it  to 
descend  until  it  flew  forth  a  jewelled  radiant  phoenix,  in 
the  interior  or  spiritual  space  of  a  Hebrew  family  on 
earth.  The  bird,  on  feeling  the  breath  of  their  affections, 
was  first  covered  with  hoar  frost,  then  masked  in  ice,  and 
then  embedded  as  in  a  tiny  glacier.  The  angel,  by  his 
touch,  caused  the  ice  to  melt,  and,  tenderly  taking  the 
bird  into  his  bosom,  it  revived,  being  immortal. 

I  was  in  the  same  place,  and  beheld  a  little  snow-white 
lamb,  pure  and  spotless.  The  angel  lifted  it  in  his  arms, 
and  with  great  care  conveyed  it  into  the  same  interior ; 
instantly,  smoke  rose  from  the  bosoms  of  the  family, 
covering  it  with  a  fuliginous  noisome  soot,  as  from  the 
fat  of  burnt  meat.  Layer  succeeded  layer ;  and  when  the 
substance  had  acquired  consistence,  it  became  like  the 
body  of  a  black  goat,  emitting  intolerable  effluvia,  and 
endeavouring  by  its  constrictions  to  pollute  the  lamb 
within.  In  the  same  manner  as  before,  the  angel  dis- 
persed the  goat  form,  and  the  lamb  was  seen,  perfectly 
unsullied,  as  the  angel  removed  him  to  the  heavenly 
pasture  where  he  fed. 


6o  The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

The  same  angel  then  took  a  resplendent  diamond,  and 
held  it  in  the  internal  space  before  the  eye  of  the  elder  of 
these  Hebrews.  The  stone  was  inscribed  within  itself  with 
a  precious  truth  concerning  the  true  riches  of  the  Spirit- 
On  being  thus  exposed,  the  gem  ceased  to  shine,  and 
seemed  a  mass  of  opacity,  the  darkness  in  the  eye  of 
this  lover  of  the  unreal  riches  entirely  shutting  up  its 
pure  brilliancy.  When  the  stone  was  removed,  it  burst 
forth  to  great  lustre  ;  and  in  it  I  saw  this  written,  "  Sell 
that  thou  hast,  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  thou  shalt  have 
treasure  in  heaven." 

The  angel  then  took  a  strip  of  white  velvety  paper,  on 
which  were  the  words,  "  Through  conjugial  love  our  Lord 
provides  eternal  union  in  heaven  for  the  pure."  The 
sentence,  when  written,  glistened  with  a  diamond  light, 
interspersed  with  rubies,  and  was  encompassed  by  a 
little  atmosphere  of  lucid  gold.  He  laid  this  upon  the 
forehead  of  another  of  the  Hebrews,  and  instantly  the 
writing  became  invisible,  and  the  paper  like  black  tinder; 
but  out  of  the  brain  of  the  man,  as  if  stirred  up  by  anta- 
gonistic forces,  shone  lucidly,  in  the  midst  of  phospho- 
rescence, hieroglyphical  characters,  thus  rendered,  "  Mar- 
riage is  permitted  scortation,  and  nothing  else." 

At  another  time  I  met  two  Hebrews  in  a  field  of  the 
Spiritual  World ;  both,  as  to  their  natural  bodies,  resi- 
dents of  earth.  One  said  to  the  other,  "  Dig  ;  we  shall 
find  treasure."  The  other  answered,  "  Why  should  we 
labour,  when  we  can  waylay?"  I  then  saw  that  robbery 
was  in  their  hearts  ;  and  they  both  resolved  that  they 
would  spoil  the  first  Gentile,  having  the  appearance  of 
riches  about  him,  who  might  pass  that  way.  Soon  after, 
one  resembling  a  very  aged  man  drew  nigh,  in  his  hands 


The  Breath  of  God  zuith  Man.  6i 

bearing  the  likeness  of  a  bag  of  treasure.  Each  grasped 
his  weapon,  and  springing  upon  the  wayfarer  from  be- 
hind, they  began  cruelly  to  beat  him  over  the  head.  He 
fell,  in  appearance  lifeless,  whereupon  each  seized  the 
bag,  which  burst  open,  strewing  the  ground  with  the  gold 
and  silver.  The  old  man,  meanwhile  reviving,  begged 
in  a  piteous  tone  that  they  would  leave  him  two  or  three 
pieces,  that  he  might  not  be  left  both  disabled  and  pen- 
niless ;  but  the  elder  of  them  picked  up  a  stone,  and 
thrust,  in  his  mouth,  crying,  "  That  is  your  share,  and  all 
you  will  get."  They  ran,  hearing  a  coming  footstep, 
such  panic  seizing  them  that  they  had  not  time  to  gather 
up  the  treasure.  I  was  told  by  an  angel,  himself  of  this 
race,  that  the  Jews  from  our  earth  are  inveterate  spolia- 
tors, and  rove  hither  and  thither  as  they  may,  many  of 
them  forming  companies  of  banditti. 

I  was  once  introduced  into  a  company  of  Israelites  in 
their  hell.  The  den  resembled  a  habitation  constructed 
by  spiders.  There  were,  perhaps,  twenty  gathered,  each 
in  his  fantasy  having  put  on,  to  celestial  sight,  a  spider's 
likeness,  and  the  chief  of  them  a  shape  more  monstrous 
than  all,  as  if  gorged  to  repletion  with  long  successions 
of  victims.  He  said,  "  I  am  the  founder  of  this  house. 
A  fig  for  Jerusalem  !  Let  the  fools  go  there  if  they  will ; 
I  am  content  with  usury."  One  replied,  "  Father,  you 
must  be  full  of  riches."  He  answered,  "  My  body  is 
full,  but  my  heart  is  so  hungry  for  more,  that  were  a  man 
to  present  himself  made  of  gold,  I  would  tear  his  flesh 
and  drink  his  blood."  Another  said,  "Father,  what  is 
the  secret  by  which  you  have  become  so  opulent  ?  "  He 
answered,  "  Craft,  and  the  appearance  of  straight  dealings. 
My  observation  teaches  me  that  it  is  wisest  always  to 


62  The  Breath  of  God  with  Mati. 

observe  the  laws  of  commerce  ;  the  law  gives  us  our  ad- 
vantage." The  reply  was,  "  The  Gentiles  are  dogs  and 
thieves."  But  the  old  man  answered,  "  Dogs  !  I  hate 
them ;  cursed  be  their  mothers  to  Gehenna ;  but  they 
say  they  have  the  kingdoms.  Which  is  best,  to  be  cast 
in  their  prisons,  or  to  adroitly  slip  into  the  inheritance 
of  their  estates  ?  Go  to  !  The  Law  of  the  Gentile  is  made 
for  the  advantage  of  the  Hebrew."  Another  said,  "  Fa- 
ther, beyond  getting  wealth,  what  do  you  purpose  to  do  ?  " 
He  answered,  "When  Messiah  comes,  He  will  lead  us 
to  Jerusalem.  I  shall  then  be  the  richest  inhabitant ; 
you,  my  sons,  Avill  be  princes.  There  is  no  end  to  the 
riches  which,  after  this,  shall  fill  our  coffers.  But  I  have 
said  enough  ;  talking  of  gold  is  good,  it  whets  the  appe- 
tite for  more.  Let  us  to  our  gains  again."  I  was  after- 
ward, as  to  my  spirit,  in  the  society  of  certain  Hebrews 
in  the  natural  world,  and  heard  this  conversation  almost 
verbatim  repeated. 

While  the  Hebrew  loves  gold,  races  under  the  influence 
of  Christendom  uniformly  crave  land,  even  when  its  pos- 
session is  not  so  materially  profitable.  Spirits  are  fre- 
quently seen,  on  leaving  the  body,  anxiously  inquiring 
for  desirable  territories,  and  when  they  are  informed  that 
there  are  such  beyond,  in  the  possession  of  peaceful  races, 
they  ask  if  they  have  armies  like  those  of  France  and 
Britain,  and  if  they  can  defend  themselves.  Sometimes 
their  conditions  are  such  that  they  behold  in  the  distance 
the  peaceful  cities  of  the  angels,  delicious  paradises, 
broad  lands,  made  rich  by  harmonious  industry.  On 
beholding  them,  the  spirit  which  has  prompted  the  civil- 
ized nations  of  Europe  to  overrun  the  earth,  takes  pos- 
session of  them,  the  spirit  of  Cortez  and  Pizarro. 


TJie  Breath  of  God  luith  Man.  63 

It  is  as  if  they  beheld  the  tropical  Bahamas,  the  gardens 
of  Mexico,  the  golden  temples  of  Peru.  The  first  excla- 
mation is,  "  We  are  Christian  people,  and  have  the  right 
to  discover  and  conquer  all  countries  where  the  Christian 
Religion  is  not  in  vogue."  The  infatuation  which  would 
prompt  the  sectarist  on  earth  to  declare  that  the  non-be- 
liever in  peculiar  dogmas  cannot  be  a  Christian  man, 
incites  these  multitudes  to  declare  that  there  is  no  Chris- 
tianity in  the  Heavens. 

Sometimes,  when  angels  come  down,  they  converse 
with  them,  and  this  is  permitted  in  order  that  men  may 
be  brought  to  their  real  states  by  the  calling  forth  of  their 
cupidities.  Ungodly  spirits,  who  are  of  the  Evangelical 
persuasion,  declare,  on  hearing  these  statements,  that  it 
is  doing  God  service  to  go  up  and  convert  them  to  the 
true  faith,  to  carry  them  a  pure  gospel,  to  teach  them 
how  to  pray,  and  to  convince  them  of  the  error  of  their 
practices.  They  scent  from  afar  the  breath  of  those  pure 
lands,  and  instantly  assert  that  these  are  countries  which 
await  the  triumphs  of  the  Cross.  Scenting  nothing  san- 
guinary in  the  wafted  atmospheres  of  worship  and  of  love, 
they  conclude  that  what  is  known  and  practised  there  is 
natural  religion,  which  they  have  been  taught  to  consider 
a  uniform  infidelity.  They  quote  the  example  of  their 
ancestors,  who  despoiled  the  North  American  continent, 
and  in  the  name  of  God  make  attempts  to  rob,  subdue, 
and  deflorate  the  very  Heavens. 

The  essence  of  the  nominally  Christian  Society  is 
licensed  robbery.  It  is  but  the  casting  off  of  a  cloak 
and  the  removing  of  an  obstacle,  and  the  unjust  shop- 
keeper becomes  a  bandit.  Men  whose  cupidities  have 
been  restrained  on  earth  by  the  dread  of  present  im- 


64  The  Brcatli  of  God  ivith  Man. 

prisonment  and  a  final  Hell,  enter  the  Earth  of  Spirits 
to  emerge  into  their  real  characters.  Living  and  d3ang 
with  but  natural  thoughts,  their  corporeal  states  unite 
to  persuade  them  that  what  they  behold  is  but  an  ex- 
tension of  the  earth.  The  education  which  they  have 
received,  the  passions  which  they  have  cherished,  com- 
bine for  a  period  to  fill  them  with  the  idea  that  they 
stand  on  the  borders  of  a  new  El  Dorado,  which  awaits 
the  conqueror.  One  beholds  Englishmen  with  the 
banner  of  St.  George,  Frenchmen  with  the  tricolour, 
Americans  with  the  stars  and  stripes  ;  and  in  curious 
juxtaposition  the  clergyman  who  has  doffed  his  cassock, 
with  the  shopkeeper  who  has  left  the  ledger,  and  the 
malefactor  whose  neck  yet  bears  a  ghastly  imprint  of 
the  hangman's  rope.  "  Beauty  and  booty  "  is  the  motto. 
Yet  differences  here  declare  themselves,  the  more 
outwardly  sanctimonious  proposing  to  possess  these  fair 
lands  by  cunning,  to  introduce  chicanery  and  all  the  arts 
by  which  shrewd  dealers  acquire  wealth,  to  marry  the 
rich  and  beautiful  daughters,  to  establish  the  Sabbath- 
school,  the  prayer-meeting,  and  the  stated  ministrations 
of  the  gospel,  to  immerse  the  converts,  if  they  are 
Baptists,  and  to  organize  dioceses  and  build  cathedrals,  if 
Episcopalians.  One  of  their  frequent  practices  is  rigidly 
to  interrogate  the  proposed  members  of  their  predatory 
bands,  nosing  out  heresies  among  them  with  the  keen 
scent  of  practised  theologians,  and  not  admitting  Socini- 
ans,  Universalists,  or  the  like,  unless  converted  by  God. 
"  How,"  said  one,  "  can  Heaven  smile  upon  our  enter- 
prise, unless  it  partakes  purely  of  a  missionary  character  ? 
Poor  naturalists,  benighted  pagans,  how  blessed  it  will 
be  to  save  them  as  brands  from  the  burning !" 


The  Breath  of  God  luith  Man.  65 

So  steeped  in  artificialities  is  the  common  sectarian 
mind,  that  when  they  see  a  gentle,  simple,  exquisitely 
natural  man,  from  one  of  those  regions,  they  will  not 
believe  that  the  Spirit  of  the  Crucified  One  fills  his 
being ;  and  again,  beholding  them  so  peaceful,  so  gentle, 
harmless  as  doves,  inoffensive  as  lambs,  with  no  fire  of 
selfish  passion  boiling  in  the  veins  and  giving  colour  to 
the  face,  yet  withal  the  possessors  of  lands  fair  as  virgin 
Eden,  they  cannot  but  conclude  that  they  are  a  race 
easy  to  be  subdued.     The  temptation  proves  irresistible. 

It  has  never  entered  into  the  heart  of  the  natural  man 
to  conceive  of  a  purely  harmonic  society,  radiating  from 
a  centre  of  absolute  integrity,  through  circles  of  absolute 
obedience.  The  introduction  of  this  doctrine  inaugu- 
rates a  new  Christian  era.  When  spirits  from  Chris- 
tendom leave  the  natural  world,  never  having  known 
wherein  true  harmony  consists,  they  are,  for  the  most 
part,  slow  to  believe  that  the  radiant  empires,  from  time 
to  time  made  visible  in  the  distant  and  superior  expanse, 
are  other  than  the  seats  of  races  with  whom  they  can 
blend  or  associate,  or  at  least  victimise  or  overcome.  It 
is  as  if  the  Spaniard  had  been  told  that  he  could  not 
acquire  the  wealthy  empire  of  Peru,  or  the  Briton  in- 
formed that  the  dominion  of  India  was  beyond  his 
power.  It  is  soon  discovered,  however,  that  other  laws, 
other  forces  operate  than  those  which  assist  the  material 
conqueror,  and  after  a  time  the  predatory  hordes  begin 
to  cry,  that  they  do  not  war  with  men,  but  with  sorcerers 
and  magicians. 

Sometimes  these  invading  bands  are  permitted  to 
enter  Paradises.  They  move  on  hilariously,  intent  on 
spoiling  some  exquisite  city  which  shines  before  them, 

£ 


66  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

and  in  the  whirhvind  of  their  fierce  desire  they  enter  its 
precincts.  Suddenly  a  choir  of  unarmed  youths  and 
maidens  encircle  them,  robed  but  for  festivities,  crowned 
with  chaplets,  and  with  no  weapon  of  defence  beyond 
the  lute  or  viol.  One  perhaps  puts  forth  his  hand  to 
seize  the  person  of  some  resplendent  beauty.  Her  mild, 
beaming  eyes  are  uplifted ;  she  breathes  in  the  unison  of 
the  respirations  of  her  companions.  Instantly,  without  a 
visible  cause,  the  would-be  violator  begins  to  suffer  the 
pangs  of  impeded  respiration,  and  sinks  cold  as  the  un- 
sunned ice,  immobile  as  a  statue. 

Others  make  signs  for  a  truce,  veil  their  purposes,  and, 
like  the  Spaniards  with  the  unsophisticated  aborigines 
of  America,  assume  the  appearances  of  amity,  declare 
themselves  sent  on  embassies  from  high  Christian  poten- 
tates, empowered  among  other  things  to  indoctrinate 
them  in  the  gospel  of  Jesus  ;  at  the  same  time  asking  to 
be  received  upon  a  friendly  footing.  The  answer  is 
generally,  "  We  bid  you  welcome,  and  shall  not  seek  to 
restrain  you  so  long  as  you  conform  to  our  laws."  They 
are  treated  hospitably;  refreshing  food  and  drink  is  given 
them,  as  it  is  written,  "  If  thine  enemy  hunger,  feed  him ; 
if  he  thirst,  give  him  drink."  They  ravenously  devour 
the  delicious  viands,  and  quaff  ^vith  eagerness  the  rich 
beverage. 

A  herald  then  stands  forth  and  invites  them  to  de- 
clare their  message.  The  subtle  propagandist  thereupon 
begins  to  set  forth  his  creed.  He  stops  ;  labours  with 
painful  breath ;  at  last  owns  himself  unable  to  speak. 
A  wise  angel  then  courteously  says  in  substance,  "  Per- 
haps you  are  not  aware  that  the  breath  of  our  Lord, 
which  softly  undulates  in  the  bosom  of  the  atmosphere, 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  67 

dwells  in  its  might  within  our  bosoms.  He  breathes 
in  us,  and  through  us,  and  we  respire  wholly  in  and  of 
Him.  If  you  will  speak  the  truth  concerning  religion, 
your  discourse  may  proceed.  If  you  assert  untruths,  the 
breath  of  the  Father  binds  your  lungs." 

Some  of  great  skill  in  dissimulation  reply,  for  the  sake 
of  acquiring  dominion  there,  "  We  are  willing  to  think  as 
you  do."  Instantly  they  are  seized  with  mortal  pains, 
and  begin  to  writhe  as  serpents.  The  angel  then  con- 
tinues, "  To  think  as  we  do  is  not  sufficient ;  you  must 
will  as  we  do,  not  compulsorily,  but  freely."  Some  cry 
out  in  return,  "  What  do  you  mean  by  willing  as  you 
do?"  Response  is  courteously  given,  "We  mean,  by 
willing  thus,  that  we  will  to  have  no  ^^'ill  but  the  will  of 
the  Lord."  When  they  hear  this,  internal  horrors  begin 
to  seize  them,  and  the  more  violent  shout,  "  Have  at 
them  !  kill  them ! "  and  the  like,  at  the  same  time  essay- 
ing to  compass  violence. 

Eyes  are  upturned  to  Heaven ;  hands  perhaps  crossed 
upon  the  bosom ;  serenity  is  undisturbed.  All  those 
holy  breasts  respire  in  one  unison,  and  the  bandits  begin 
to  suffer  the  agonies  of  approaching  suffocation,  and  are 
soon  helpless.  It  is  thus  demonstrated  to  these  pre- 
datory hordes  from  the  lower  Christendom  that  Heaven 
is  not  to  be  molested.  They  are  then  kindly  recon- 
ducted to  the  frontiers,  and  suffered  each  to  go  toward  his 
own  congenial  place. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  passion  for  territorial  acquisi- 
tion which  characterizes  Christendom  ;  it  assumes  another 
form  in  the  Earth  of  Spirits.  Soil  is  formed  there  by  the 
accretions  and  extensions  of  the  spiritual  passions  of  man; 
good  soil  from  the  good,  evil  from  the  evil ;  but  mixed  in 

E    2 


6S  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

all  cases  with  the  opposite  elements,  because  all  there  are 
in  mixed  conditions.     In  the  soil  itself  are  hollow  nmi- 
tlings  of  earthquakes  and  violent  explosions  of  subterra- 
nean fires.  "Whosoever  touches  the  soil  about  me  touches 
me,"  said  one.      When  a  powerful  Magical  Spirit  arrives 
there,  he  soon  discovers  arts  by  means  of  which  to  render 
his  own  peculiar  soil  a  means  for  the  accomplishment  ot 
his  ambitious  purposes.     But  he  meets  with  perpetual 
disappointments.      The  edifices  which  he  builds  crum- 
ble, the  defences  which  he  rears  yawn  in  chasms,  the 
implements  which  he  creates  decay.    He 'must  labour 
with  immense  force  and  pertinacity  to  maintain  the  seem- 
ings  of  power  and  state.     If  a  consummate  adept  in  the 
arts  of  dissimulation,  he  develops  the  faculty  of  glossing 
■over  the  substances,  causing  the  sordid  elements  to  wear 
the  surface  look  of  the  precious  minerals  and  metals;  but 
the  mimic  gold  speedily  becomes  tarnished,  and  the  ficti- 
tious  gems   opaque   and   lustreless.     Theologians,   who 
wrought  with  a  great  wealth  of  purple  words  to  adorn  and 
dignify  repulsive  doctrines,   are  especial  adepts  in   this 
craft,  but  soon  become  weary  of  it.     One  of  stronger  will 
frequently  enters  into  the  possessions  of  another,  enslaving 
the  spirit  and  appropriating  his  effects.     As  spirits  of  a 
given  class  assimilate,  so  their  extended  soils  mass  to- 
gether.    Thus  barbaric  societies  are  instituted,  with  their 
accompaniments  of  scenery.     As,  in  the  hearts  of  those 
whose  inmost  loves  are  evil,  there  are  moral  avenues  that 
open  downward  into  Infernus,  so  corresponding  passages 
exist  in  the  earths  about  them ;  and  as  the  evil  ones  rise, 
and  are  subjectively  operant  in  their  bosoms,  they  also 
rise  by  these  winding  ways,  and  appear  issuing  through 
the  soil. 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  6g 

But  on  earth  man  is  a  spirit,  though  with  a  discreted 
natural  sjDhcre  and  body.  The  substanced  emanations 
of  his  frame  are  invisibly  stratified  about  him  and  below 
him.  AVhenever  his  heart  is  open  to  the  pit,  the  demons 
rise  to  labour  in  the  occult  depths  of  his  being ;  but 
whenever  openings  are  made  for  the  wicked,  who  are 
able  to  clothe  themselves  in  the  finer  substances  of  nature, 
they  enter  his  sphere  and  are  then  present  with  him,  both 
subjectively  and  objectively.  Substances  cohere  by 
similars,  and  hence  all  Christendom  is  encompassed  and 
interencompassed  by  a  magical  earth,  coherent  in  the 
unity  of  its  passions  and  acting  in  their  vitality. 

When  a  man  begins  to  rise  into  Divine  respiration,  he 
is  like  one  who  has  returned  to  life  in  the  caverns  of  the 
dead.  The  fetid  soils  cling  about  his  body.  The  cor- 
rupt miasms  are  gathered  about  his  breathing  organs.  It 
is  only  as  the  Divine  respiration  advances  that  a  new 
moral  earth  is  formed  about  him.  After  respiration  has 
somewhat  advanced,  the  new  sphere  by  which  he  is  en- 
compassed violently  disconnects  itself  from  the  old  ;  he  is 
then  bodily  discreted  from  the  old  Christian  world,  and 
begins  to  be  the  inhabitant  of  a  new  earth,  as  he  is  the 
recipient  of  a  new  Heaven. 

We  have  considered,  hitherto,  the  beginnings  of  the 
new  respiration  and  the  obstacles.  We  now  advance, 
passing  over  intermediate  stages,  to  the  close  of  its  ag- 
gressive period  in  the  frame.  Man  was  created  primarily 
with  a  natural  soul,  capable  of  a  conditioned  immortality. 
The  wilful  violation  of  the  law  of  right  subverted  its 
integrity ;  it  sank  below  the  line  of  life,  and  entered  the 
realm  of  darkness  and  dissolution.  The  sentence  pro- 
nounced upon  the  natural  soul  of  the  first  man  of  our 


70  TJic  BrcatJi  of  God  with  Man. 

earth  was,  "Dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  thou  shalt 
return."  He  transmitted  to  posterity  his  own  physical 
conditions.  INIan,  had  not  this  occurred,  would  have 
shared  in  that  glorious  process  of  ascension  which 
characterizes  the  harmonic  universe,  where  sin  is  not. 
Without  here  considering  the  question  whether  an  ap- 
pearance of  decease  would  have  attended  his  glorious 
ascension,  without  either  affirming  or  denying  that  cer- 
tain corporeal  exuvia  in  the  outlines  of  the  body  would 
have  been  left  in  a  concrete  mould,  instead  of  being  instan- 
taneously and  electrically  dissipated,  we  may  infer  that 
the  natural  soul,  by  the  involution  of  its  elements,  would 
have  arisen,  encompassing  the  spirit  proper,  a  resplendent 
and  powerful  form,  serving  the  ends  of  the  inner  and 
higher  personality.     (See  A.  of  C.  i,  I.  index.) 

In  the  resurrection  of  the  visible  body  of  the  Divine 
Man,  the  glorious  precursor  of  his  rehabilitated  and  im- 
mortal people,  we  have  an  illustration  of  the  tenet.  (See 
also  A.  of  C.  I,  I.)  When  the  sentence  was  pronounced 
against  the  natural  soul  of  man,  it  was  absolute  and  uni- 
versal. It  is  the  breath  of  our  now  glorified  Lord,  the 
breath  not  of  Deity  without,  but  of  Deity  in  humanity, 
that  begins  to  renovate  the  human  constitution.  It  sweeps 
on  in  majestic  cycles,  at  every  stage  dissipating  sordors, 
casting  out  plagues,  reducing  inchoate  elements  to  order, 
at  once  solidifying  and  powerfully  vitalising  the  frame. 
At  length  it  reaches  the  most  intimate  seats  of  the  struc- 
ture, the  habitation  of  the  natural  soul.  When  this  occurs, 
that  organism  perishes.  At  this  awful  and  solemn  crisis 
of  our  fate,  a  new  natural  soul,  created  through  the  Divine 
Humanity  of  our  Lord  and  therefore  without  evil,  beau- 
tiful as  morning  attended  by  the  rosy  hours,  as  spring 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  /i 

with  the  maidens  of  her  floral  train,  a  radiant  apparition 
of  innocence  and  beauty  and  abundant  joy,  is  insemi- 
nated in  its  place.  The  spirit  is  thus  clothed  upon,  in  the 
apt  language  of  the  apostle,  with  a  house  which  is  from 
Heaven.  After  this,  the  rehabilitation  of  the  frame  is  con- 
tinuous. While  the  old  natural  soul  maintained  its  evil  life, 
warfare  existed  between  it  and  the  recreating  breaths ;  but 
now  both  spirit  and  soul  breathe  in  one  harmony,  which 
unifies  the  composite  structure  of  existence. 

This  however,  is  the  seed  germ  of  a  new  beginning. 
The  new  natural  soul  is  first  infantile,  then  juvenile,  then 
youthful,  and  finally  adolescent ;  becoming  at  each  stage 
more  powerful,  more  active,  more  imperative.  Now  for  the 
first  time  begins  to  be  formed  about  the  new  man,  in  the 
fine  spaces  of  nature,  a  human  earth,  which,  unlike  the 
former  earth,  is  permanent  and  indestructible,  except  as 
wilful  evils  are  suffered  to  intrude.  Truth,  goodness, 
power,  are  its  derived  characteristics ;  light,  heat,  and 
harmonic  motion  its  phenomena.  It  glows  with  a  fine 
purity,  as  a  virgin  light  goldenly  radiant.  Its  ardours 
mount  from  those  of  the  early  spring  to  those  of  meridian 
summer,  and  there  remain ;  for  neither  darkness  nor  de- 
cay are  among  its  contingencies;  nor  does  its  motion  ever 
cease,  but  becomes  more  rapid,  a  fiery  belt,  ruddy  and 
crystalline,  radiating  by  its  action  the  beams  that  are  its 
life. 

When  the  cycle  of  terrestrial  existence  closes,  the  circle 
narrows.  The  wheels  revolve  inwardly.  The  substances 
are  inter-attracted.  They  form  about  the  natural  soul  a 
radiant  vesture.  The  breaths  of  the  Lord,  which  in  their 
omnipotent  outgoing  have  recreated  man  in  the  divine 
image  and  likeness,  plenarily   uplift  him  in  their  final 


72  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

ascension.  Whatever  visible  exuvia  may  remain  in  the 
shell  of  the  body,  they  contain  no  relics  of  the  natural 
soul.  It  is  not  death,  for  death  is  abolished.  May  such, 
brother  who  readest,  be  thy  blessed  transit ;  and  may 
those  who  see  thee  pass  triumphantly,  affirm,  that  "death 
is  swallowed  up  in  victory." 

Swedenborg,  in  his  natural  experience,  was  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  fact  of  open  respiration  in  its  earlier  stages  ; 
while  in  his  writings  he  cogently  and  very  clearly  sets 
forth  the  nature  of  the  respirations  which  existed  in  the 
ancient  Golden  Age,  and  shows  that  the  typical  deluge, 
involving  far  greater  than  a  mere  material  catastrophe, 
was  a  flood  of  elements  which  overwhelmed  the  ancient 
breathings  of  the  world. 

That  bounteous  Wisdom,  which  ever  delights  to  sur- 
prise its  creatures  with  fair  and  still  more  fair  disclosures 
of  its  face,  has  properly,  if  we  may  here  use  the  word, 
veiled  over  this  most  exquisite  of  all  natural  truths  until 
the  present  day.  It  lies,  a  virgin  world,  where  the 
flowers  die  not,  and  the  fruits  wither  not,  and  the  ele- 
ments contend  not ;  where  beauty  celebrates  her  eternal 
nuptials  of  innocence,  amid  the  epithalamiums  of  celestial 
choirs.  It  rises,  an  orbed  star,  in  the  heavens  of  con- 
sciousness, a  star  of  advent  and  hope.  Blessed  that 
household,  blessed  all  households,  upon  whom  its  beams 
shall  fall !  And  blessed  the  brows  encircled  by  its 
aureole,  and  the  bosoms  that  thrill  and  kindle  to  the 
marches  of  its  mystic  gladness !  Orb  of  the  new 
nativities  of  man,  which  builds  Bethlehem  Ephratah  in 
the  obedient,  receptive  frame ;  orb,  that  if  it  shines  above 
the  countenance,  uplifted  to  the  Father,  upon  lonely 
mountains  of  temptation,  or  on  the  brow  cinctured  with 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  73 

its  ^^Teath  of  bloody  sweat  amidst  the  sorrows  of  Gethse- 
mane,  or  if  it  pauses  in  suspense  of  light  over  the  Calvary 
where  love  consummates  its  days  in  martyrdom;  yet  breaks 
forth  with  thrice  Divine  refulgence  when  the  composite 
man,  leaving  no  element  of  either  soul  or  spirit  in  the 
embraces  of  corruption,  follows  its  Infinite  Precursor, 
not  unclothed  but  clothed  upon,  that  mortality  may  be 
swallowed  up  in  life. 

If  we  use  the  word  Christendom  as  synonymous  with 
the  pure,  or  real  Christendom,  we  must  yet  bear  in  mind 
that  the  corporate  body,  so  called,  is  not  Christendom ; 
neither  is  heathendom,  heathendom.  The  assumption 
that  any  extant  sect  purely  represents  the  Church  Mili- 
tant is  a  monstrous  chimera,  and  the  doctrine  that  any 
creed  represents  a  saving  faith  is  equally  fallacious. 
Pure  truth  saves  by  its  connection  with  pure  good,  and 
otherwise  there  is  no  absolute  salvation.  Man  may  rise 
into  states  of  immature  excellence,  through  the  unitary 
action  of  partial  truth  combined  with  partial  good.  The 
grand  old  religions  of  the  Orient,  the  faiths  of  Brahma, 
Buddha,  and  of  Zoroaster,  and  even  Fetishism,  the 
lowest  of  all,  according  to  their  genius,  each  possess  a 
greater,  lesser,  or  least  degree,  both  of  veracity  and 
morality.  The  rude  African  tribes,  the  dense  myriads  of 
Asia,  of  whatever  faith,  and  in  whatever  idolatry,  dwell 
not  in  unrelieved  darkness.  It  is  only  when  the  indi- 
vidual is  elevated  to  a  mental  and  moral  superiority  above 
his  creed,  that  it  becomes  an  absolute  injur}'  to  him.  So 
the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches,  the  various  Protestant 
bodies,  are  good  to  whomsoever  of  their  disciples  are 
below  their  standards  and  amenable  to  their  best  and 
truest  influences  and  inculcations.     They  are  uniformly 


74  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

injurious  to  whomsoever  is  striving  to  embody  the  purer 
and  nobler  ideal.  So  long  as  the  Methodist,  the  Baptist, 
the  Universalist,  the  Episcopalian,  each  according  to  his 
respective  proclivities  and  opennesses,  morally  and  intel- 
lectually grows  under  the  combined  operation  of  their 
ministries,  rites,  and  literatures,  they  represent,  however 
imperfectly,  Divine  helps.  When  a  sceptic  becomes  a 
Universalist,  he  advances ;  when  a  sensualist  becomes  a 
Wesleyan,  it  is  a  vast  improvement ;  when  a  worldling 
embraces  Episcopalianism,  it  is  a  change  for  the  better. 
No  communion  is  one  of  unmixed  falsity  and  evil,  where 
men  are  taught  to  shun  depravities  as  sins  against  religion 
and  Divinity. 

Considering  this  doctrine  from  another  point,  it  is  even 
true  that  a  pirate  may  receive  a  higher  tone,  under  the 
influence  of  gentle  thieves,  who  have  some  remains  of 
conscience,  which  forbids  their  taking  life.  The  man 
who  is  both  a  gambler  and  a  libertine  may  be  improved 
in  the  society  of  those — and  there  are  those — who,  while 
given  to  the  tricks  of  the  sharper,  look  with  scorn  upon 
debauchery.  When  Mahomet  said  that  the  lowest  of  the 
Hells  was  for  the  hypocrites  of  all  religions,  he  caught 
the  profile  view  of  a  noble  doctrine ;  for  the  hypocrite 
lets  all  good  and  truth  pass  through  him,  appropriating 
none.  Hy[:)Ocrisy  is  the  last  prostitution  of  humanity. 
So  long  as  the  soul  really  possesses  a  religious  hatred  of 
this  vice,  there  is  one  solid  point  in  it  whicli  may  serve 
as  a  fulcrum  for  the  Divine  moral  lever. 

A  doctrine  of  pure  truth  is  the  hope  and  desire  of  the 
intellect,  and  a  system  of  pure  life  the  earnest  and 
agonised  expectation  of  the  will.  The  unrestful,  the 
unhappy  seekers  after  both,   especially  in  chaotic,  un- 


Tlie  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man.  75 

settled  times  like  the  present,  subject  sect  after  sect 
as  to  a  crucial  test  3  and,  if  they  are  growing  in  a 
right  direction,  may  reject  one  after  the  other;  painfully 
it  is  tme,  yet  not  without  advantage.  When  a  man 
arises  above  the  standard  of  Methodism  he  will  be  in 
agony  until  he  leaves  it,  but  this  proves  nothing  against 
its  use  to  multitudes.  It  is  impossible  to  apply  a  uniform 
admeasurement,  for  each  sect  is  good  or  bad  to  the 
individual,  as  it  facilitates  or  retards  the  extirpation  of 
the  evils  and  the  falsities,  the  quickening  and  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  purities  and  the  veracities.  The  hyper-Cal- 
vinist  may  be  improved  for  a  time  by  an  experience  of 
Universalism,  which  is  most  true  on  the  side  where 
Calvinism  is  untrue.  Each  sect  commends  itself  to  the 
relatively  good  and  true,  by  the  prominence  v/hich  it 
gives  to  some  doctrine  of  truth  or  morals,  of  which  they 
feel  the  special  need,  and  toward  which  they  incline 
warmly  and  sympathetically.  It  is  only  when  men  begin 
to  demand  an  absolute  hannony  of  truth,  for  the  purpose 
of  embodying  it  in  the  harmony  of  individual  and  uni- 
versal existence,  that  the  faith  which  here  finds  expres- 
sion becomes  a  necessity.  So  long  as  one  is  not,  as  to 
his  spirit,  as  to  his  whole  composite  personality,  pining 
for  a  plenary  union  with  the  Divine  Spirit,  the  lesser 
faith  will  serve  him ;  the  greater  becomes  only  impera- 
tive when  the  lesser  fails  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
soul. 

It  is  a  great  step  for  a  man  immersed  in  corporeality, 
when  he  becomes  convicted  at  heart  with  the  truth  that 
there  are  great  absolute  moral  distinctions  between  good 
and  evil,  that  the  former  is  commendable,  the  latter  dam- 
nable.    Upon  this  foundation  he  may  raise,  in  time,  the 


y6  TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Ulan. 

noblest  superstructure.  Where  this  groundwork  is  es- 
tablished, a  solid  base  is  laid  for  the  Divine  temple  ; 
but  the  systems  which  annihilate  this  distinction  are  fatal 
to  the  soul.  That  theory  which  teaches  that  vice  is  the 
rudimental  form  of  virtue,  and  that  the  difference  be- 
tween the  Christ  and  the  pirate  is  one  of  mere  pro- 
gression, works  gradually  upon  the  mind  and  heart  with 
the  baneful  enchantments  of  Circe,  who  transformed  her 
votaries  into  swine.  In  the  ratio  in  which  any  sect 
approaches  this  error,  it  divorces  itself  from  Heaven,  and 
connects  itself  with  Hell.  This  is  the  only  faith  on 
earth  that  teaches  an  absolute  infernalism ;  it  is  pande- 
monium in  disguise.  That  such  a  doctrine  is  permitted 
is,  however,  in  the  Divine  providence ;  it  works  good  in 
the  age  now  passing  away.  Men  were  grouped  and  knit 
together  by  habit,  custom,  the  force  of  creeds  and  cir- 
cumstances. 

In  the  age  upon  which  the  world  is  just  entering,  the 
reverse  will  obtain,  and  individuals  will  associate  by  the 
stern  yet  beneficent  operation  of  the  Lord,  by  moral 
proclivities  and  affinities.  The  doctrine  which  asserts 
so  positively  that  evil  is  but  good  in  its  germinal  state, 
and  which  therefore  annihilates  the  final  ground  of  moral 
distinctions,  subserves  this  important  end ;  forming  a 
nucleating  point  which  will  attract  to  itself  its  kindred 
spirits,  detaching  them  from  the  old  religious  parties,  and 
giving  visible  shape  and  consistency  to  that  latent  senti- 
ment in  the  world,  which  not  invidiously  may  be  styled 
the  Antichrist. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  absolute  harmony, 
resulting  from  absolute  integrity,  which  is  expressed  in 
these  pages,  will  serve  the  opposite  purpose.     Moham- 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  yy 

medanism  can  rise  no  higher  than  the  ideal  of  Mahomet ; 
passing  that  ideal  it  is  Mohammedanism  no  more ;  Epis- 
copalianism  can  rise  no  higher  than  the  standards  of  its 
creeds  and  liturgies.  When  it  breaks  these  it  is  Episco- 
palianism  no  more.  But  a  faith  of  pure  harmony  in- 
strumentally  lifts  men  into  the  very  bosom  of  Deity, 
where  the  Divine  respirations  are  led  out  through  all  the 
frame.  Unlike  the  creeds,  which  perish  because  they 
make  no  provision  for  the  knowledges  of  higher  truth 
through  the  evolution  of  nobler  faculties,  this  answers 
the  final  ends  of  Providence.  It  is  a  finality.  The 
time  will  come  when  what  is  here  stated  will  be  looked 
upon  as  having  served  its  day.  Men  will  say,  "  So 
sprang  from  earth  this  mighty  tree,  which  now  over- 
shadows the  world."  The  smallest  of  all  seeds,  but 
because  it  contains  the  provisions  for  boundless  growth, 
it  cannot  be  cancelled.  It  can  never  interpose  any 
barrier  of  limitations  to  the  evolution  of  the  Divine  good 
and  truth  in  man. 

This,  therefore,  is  the  Absolute  Christianity.  The  ob- 
jection, in  the  way  of  creeds,  is  not  that  they  are  state- 
ments of  doctrine,  but  that  there  is  no  absolute  method 
for  their  verification.  It  is  monstrous  to  force  on  men 
doctrines  which  they  cannot  verify,  and  consequently 
the  human  intellect  exists  in  a  state  of  suppressed  revolt, 
ever  gathering  forces  for  spasms  of  revolution.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  doctrinal  standards,  which,  however  super- 
natural in  their  statements,  however  cosmical  or  psychi- 
cal, can  be  organically  demonstrated,  and  proven  by 
methods  provided  in  the  economies  of  the  human  frame, 
are  never  liable  to  this  objection. 

Christendom   is   divided   into  three  great  schools  of 


yS  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

thought ;  the  CathoHc,  the  Protestant,  and  the  Rational- 
ist. The  Catholic  holds  that  the  canonical  Scriptures 
embody  the  Divine  Revelation,  and  are  to  be  received  as 
true ;  but  that  such  a  thing  as  the  right  of  private  inter- 
pretation does  not  exist ;  that  in  matters  of  belief  the 
Church  is  the  final  authority.  To  the  conscientious 
Catholic,  therefore,  the  voice  of  the  Church  is  as  the 
voice  of  God.  By  the  Church,  it  understands  all  those 
who  accept  and  obey  that  ecclesiastical  organization  of 
which  the  metropolis  is  Rome.  Whatever  the  Romish 
hierarchy,  assembled  in  general  council,  declare  to  be  the 
true  exposition  of  any  dogma,  the  majority  of  these  ex- 
pressing the  voice  of  the  Church,  it  is  ipso  facto  an  eternal 
verity.  This  theory  is  imposing  as  it  is  venerable.  There 
is  something  august  in  the  conception  of  a  pontifical 
body,  the  ancients  of  the  faith,  subsisting  from  generation 
to  generation,  embosoming  the  Divine  Presence  and 
authoritatively  announcing  the  wisdom  of  Infinity. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Protestant  party  is  that  the  Bible 
is  the  sole  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and  capable  of  in- 
telligent interpretation,  through  the  individual  reason  of 
believers.  It  maintains  the  right  of  private  judgnient,  on 
the  ground  that  the  dogmatic  contents  of  the  Scripture 
can  be  understood  through  its  exercise.  Against  the 
Catholic  idea  of  unity  and  authority  it  off-sets  the  con- 
ception of  liberty  and  individuality.  This  theory  is  also, 
upon  a  different  ground,  sublime.  No  man  can  wonder 
at  the  strong  hold  which  it  took  upon  the  affections  of 
Christendom.  It  was  a  bulwark  for  the  rights  of  men 
against  that  most  odious  of  despotisms,  a  tyranny  which 
builds  around  the  intellect  a  dungeon,  and  excludes  the 
vital  air  until  it  becomes  a  tomb. 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  "jc) 

The  third  school  is  the  Rationahstie,  It  denies  both 
that  an  hierarchal  organism  is  final  authority  in  matters 
of  religion,  and  that  any  writing  or  collections  of  wTitings 
is  master  of  the  soul.  Its  theory  is  that  all  truth  is  sacred, 
wherever  found,  and  all  error  base,  no  matter  by  whom 
taught,  or  where,  or  on  what  assumptions  of  authority. 
It  makes  the  enligthened  consciousness,  the  most  tho- 
roughly and  comprehensively  cultured  human  reason,  in 
all  matters,  both  of  theology  and  ethics,  a  tribunal  of  final 
appeal.  From  the  obvious  tyrannies  of  Rome,  from  the 
seemingly  incongruous  statements  of  Scripture,  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  a  large  and  increasing  class  of 
thinkers  recede  to  this  last  position ;  it  stands,  a  lofty 
assertion  of  the  dignity  and  grandeur  of  the  human  intel- 
ligence, the  exhaustive  accuracy  of  its  processes,  the  recti- 
tude of  its  powers,  the  absolute  value  of  its  final  con- 
clusions. 

But  the  Catholic  School  builds  upon  a  foundation 
which  is  untenable.  The  primitive  Church  ramified  into 
a  multiplicity  of  parties :  where  is  the  evidence  that 
any  one  of  these  purely  held  the  doctrine  of  Christ  ? 
Which  was,  and  which  was  not  the  Church  ?  Rome 
says,  "Behold  it  in  me!"  But  where  is  the  proof? 
Analysed,  it  amounts  to  no  more  or  less  than  this, — that 
in  a  period  when  rival  dogmas  fiercely  contended,  its 
party,  after  a  series  of  defeats  and  victories,  obtained  a 
decided  preponderance  over  the  others.  A  preponde- 
rance of  what?  Of  numbers.  So  then,  it  rests  purely 
upon  the  fact  of  having  cast  a  majority  of  votes  in  the 
excitement  of  popular  suffrages.  In  a  word,  God  is  on 
the  side  of  the  heaviest  battalions.  Practically  it  divides 
its  adherents  into  two  classes,  a  small  minority  of  prac- 


8o  "^hc  BrcatJi  of  God  with  Man. 

tised  theologians,  the  philosophers  of  its  dogma,  and  an 
ovenvhelming  majority  of  indifferent  disciples,  who,  with- 
out exercising  the  reason,  are  content  to  assent  to  a  mass 
of  incomprehensible  propositions,  exercising  no  higher 
attributes  than  those  of  a  devout  credulity.  For  be  it 
bonie  in  mind,  that  this  system  offers  no  test  of  doctrine 
that  can  be  applied  successfully  by  the  individual  be- 
liever. Be  its  tenets  accurate  or  inaccurate,  they  are 
wholly  incapable  of  proof  It  is  a  theory  of  relative 
weights,  which  cannot  be  demonstrated  because  the 
scales  balance  in  a  vacuum. 

The  Protestant  School  holds  simply  the  Catholic  doc- 
trine, pulverised  to  atoms  ;  merely  substituting  the  indi- 
vidual unit  for  the  composite  society.  It  makes  the 
decisions  of  the  individual  believer  individually  valid,  as 
its  rival  makes  the  decisions  of  the  hierarchal  conclave 
generally  valid.  The  same  objection  applies  to  both 
methods.  It  is  furthermore  open  to  the  most  destructive 
criticism.  First,  the  Bible,  as  containing  a  dogmatic  sys- 
tem, is  not  a  simple  statement,  but  one  of  infinite  com- 
plexity. But  how  many,  in  the  multitude  of  individual 
believers,  possess  the  centrality  and  continuity  of  thought 
requisite  for  the  translation  of  its  myriad  of  statements, 
many  of  them  in  apparent  conflict,  into  one  grand  and 
veritable  harmony?  Again,  when  one  has  arrived  at 
conclusions  of  his  own,  concerning  what  the  Bible  teaches 
of  God,  of  creation,  of  judgment,  of  Heaven,  and  Hell, 
and  the  awful  series  of  most  momentous  doctrine,  by  what 
process  can  he  prove  his  conclusions;  especially  in  the  pre- 
sence of  myriads  of  hostile  thinkers,  each  going  to  the 
same  record  as  prayerfully,  as  conscientiously,  andas  ration- 
ally, yet  each  elaborating  his  widely  dissimilar  system. 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Mati.  8i 

There  is  no  doubt  that  each  of  the  Protestant  sects 
originated  in  the  honest  application  of  the  individual 
judgment  to  the  self-same  Scripture.  In  this  respect  the 
original  Protestant  assumption  has  proved  a  failure.  It 
has  led,  and  is  leading  great  multitudes  to  the  honest 
conviction,  that  there  is  no  certainty  in  the  conclusions 
of  any  sect,  and  that  the  grave  doctrines  of  theology  are 
incomprehensible  in  the  present  state  of  man.  Practi- 
cally, the  great  Protestant  sects  are  obliged,  in  self- 
defence,  to  copy  the  Romish  example.  Each  assumes 
the  infallibility  of  its  system  of  interpretation,  and  conse- 
quent doctrinal  formulas.  The  Baptist,  the  Calvinist,  no 
more  reads  the  Scriptures  to  form  a  creed  for  himself. 
He  reads  them  for  the  purpose  of  collating  texts  and 
adducing  arguments  to  support  the  hypotheses  of  the 
creed  of  the  sect  which  enrols  him  among  its  disciples. 
In  a  modified  sense  the  system  works  as  does  the  Romish 
one ;  the  ecclesiastical  few  stand  in  place  of  the  reason  to 
the  secular  many  :  the  whole  structure  is  built  on  assump- 
tions which,  when  tested,  are  as  the  airy  fabric  of  a  dream. 

Finally,  of  the  Rationalistic  School,  which  translates 
the  ultimate  court  of  appeal  from  the  council  and  the 
Scripture  to  the  individual  reason.  Men  arrive  at  right 
conclusions  in  science,  because  they  can  apply  material 
tests  to  material  estimates.  In  a  question  so  remote  as 
that  of  the  distance  and  the  bulk  of  Sirius,  there  is  a 
material  gauge  and  demonstration.  But  when  we  enter 
on  the  ground  of  spiritual  facts,  forms,  laws,  and  forces ; 
when  we  analyse  revelations,  which  deal  with  these  in 
parables,  metaphors,  illustrations,  no  less  than  in  appa- 
rently direct  phrase,  how  can  the  natural  intellect  educe 
a  rational  and  universal  truth?      Hence    Rationalism 

F 


82  TJic  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

breaks  up  into  schools  as  varied  and  fantastic  as  the  clouds. 
What  German  philosophies  rise  and  fall  !  What  periodical 
developments  of  "  Liberal  Theism"  or  "  Liberal  Christian- 
ity !"  The  effect  is  the  production  of  a  profound  sadness 
in  mind  and  heart ;  the  gold  turns  to  dross  in  the  crucible, 
and  the  gem  shivers  to  atoms  in  the  lathe  of  the  polisher. 
Alas,  the  conclusion  is,  unfaith  in  the  processes  of  reason, 
a  sinking  back  from  mere  exhaustion,  and  from  the  aching 
and  craving  appetite  for  infallibility  and  certainty,  from 
one  religious  cloud-bank  to  another,  till  the  soul  welters 
at  last  into  the  stagnated  mother-pool — Rome. 

A  final  and  more  recent  nebula  of  a  party  demands  a 
passing  notice  ;  that  of  the  modern  Spiritists  or  Spiritual- 
ists. But  it  cannot  be  assigned  a  dogmatic  place,  because 
it  has  no  place,  it  is  protean.  Among  Spiritists  are  Ca- 
tholics, Protestants  of  nearly  every  type,  and  Rationalists. 
In  all  its  distinctions  there  is  one  unifying  tenet,  that  the 
departed  communicate  with  men.  It  was  believed  by 
•many  intelligent  persons,  that  as  communications  were 
opened  between  the  natural  and  spiritual  worlds,  the 
mysterious  veil  which  hides  the  face  of  Truth  from  mor- 
tals would  be  drawn  aside.  But  the  sphinx  is  not  thus 
read,  the  countenance  of  Isis  not  thus  made  visible. 
Here,  if  anything  is  proved,  it  is  that  communications  are 
received  which  confirm  each  man  in  the  faith  which  his 
spirit  cherishes.  If  in  America  nearly  all  become  the 
adherents  of  the  doctrine  of  natural  progression,  it  is 
because  this  is  the  doctrine  inscribed  in  the  constitution 
of  the  inverted  fleshly  man;  and  if  it  annihilates  the  ground 
of  moral  distinctions,  it  is  because  this  falsehood  is  organ- 
ized in  the  midst  of  the  disease  and  depravity  and  per- 
versity of  the  fallen  natural  soul. 


TJic  BrcatJi  of  God  tvith  Maji.  83 

The  more  numerous  class  of  Spiritists  make,  theoreti- 
cally, reason  and  nature  the  test  of  truth;  but,  underlying 
the  statement,  is  the  assumption  that  the  reason  which 
ignores  the  radical  distinctions  of  good  and  evil  is  the 
true  reason,  and  the  world  in  which  depravities  have 
made  the  history  of  humanity  a  long  abomination  is  a 
normal,  healthful  world.  It  assumes  first  what  it  cannot 
prove,  and  second  Avhat  is  utterly  repugnant  to  the  puri- 
fied and  quickened  heart.  Theology  to-day  occupies  the 
position  which  Geography  did  before  men  knew  the 
rotundity  of  the  globe,  and  that  Astronomy  held  in  times 
when  learned  and  studious  men  balanced  between  the 
hypotheses  of  Ptolemy  and  Aristotle. 

It  is  affecting  to  observe,  in  all  religious  organizations, 
the  same  Divinity  striving  to  descend  in  loving  benefac- 
tion ;  the  same  humanity  struggling  to  arise  in  faith  and 
aspiration.  Most  pathetic  also  to  behold,  amidst  the 
throng  gathered  together,  some  by  curiosity,  some  by 
novelty,  others  by  worldly  interests  or  morbid  supersti- 
tion, the  same  Divine  Stranger :  and  here  one  pressing 
closely  to  betray,  and  there  another  to  stretch  forth  the 
hand  and  touch  the  hem  of  His  garment  and  be  healed 
of  a  life's  infirmity.  The  God  of  Islam,  of  Buddhism,  of 
Rome,  and  Protestant  Orthodoxy,  and  Liberalism,  and 
Rationalism  is  the  same  God,  The  Christ  of  the  Catho- 
lic, the  Wesleyan,  the  Unitarian,  is  the  same  Christ.  The 
one  Heaven,  that  is  without  a  rent  or  stain,  folds  its  pure 
and  seamless  mantle  around  the  penitent,  the  virtuous  of 
all  religions. 

Deeply  instructive  too  are  the  lessons  suggested  by  the 
opp'osite  developments  of  character  in  the  bosom  of  the 
same  belief.     Those  who  yearn  for  the  purest  purity  and 

F  2 


84  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

the  most  loving  love,  find,  even  in  the  narrowest  creeds, 
a  means  of  grace ;  while  those  whose  tendencies  are  to 
bitterness  and  strife  grow  hard  and  cruel  under  the  most 
genial  ministrations.  Two  of  the  most  devout  of  Catho- 
lics were  Pascal  and  Torquemada,  each  a  son  of  the 
church,  but  the  former  an  Abel  or  a  John,  the  latter  a 
Cain  or  an  Iscariot ;  the  one  all  tenderness  and  sympathy, 
possessing  the  maximum  of  virtue  and  the  minimum  of 
defect,  and  the  other  cruel  as  the  fire  he  kindled,  and  un- 
feeling as  the  instruments  of  torture  that  he  applied  with 
the  same  remorseless  purpose  to  tender  maidens  and 
learned  and  pious  men.  Could  we  sift  any  sect,  we  should 
find  everywhere  incipient  Pascals,  germinantTorquemadas. 

What  lessons,  also,  both  of  hope  and  terror,  are  de- 
rived from  facts  like  these.  Universalism  is  commonly 
considered  as  but  an  epidermis  of  religion  drawn  over 
the  lifeless  anatomy  of  belief;  yet  here,  amidst  the 
worldly  who  crave  a  faith  that  makes  salvation  inevitable, 
may  be  found  troops  of  tender-hearted  women,  merciful 
and  hopeful  men,  youths  who  cherish  transcendent  aspi- 
rations, venerable  matrons,  nursing,  amidst  the  snows  of 
age,  the  purest  flames  of  that  sweet  piety  that  broadens 
and  brightens  to  the  eternal  morn. 

On  the  other  hand,  no  morality  is  so  high  as  that  of 
Swedenborg,  no  philosophy  so  intellectual,  no  faith  so 
utterly  hostile  to  self-love  and  to  its  worldliness  ;  yet  here, 
where  Heaven  and  Hell  are  translated  almost  into  visible 
actualities,  and  freedom  asserted  upon  its  broadest  pre- 
mises, the  sensualist  is  confirmed  in  voluptuousness,  and 
the  formalist  in  an  eviscerated,  petrific  pharisaism.  Beside 
the  holy  heart  that  expatiates  in  a  wide  realm  of  inflow- 
ing beatitudes,  another  nurses  scorjiions,  and  its   fires 


TJic  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man.  85 

and  forges  harden  the  ore  of  its  hatreds  into  the  weapons 
of  spiritual  assassination. 

All  too  present  the  same  stratifications  of  a  human 
geology  :  a  broad  layer  of  religionists,  whose  attribute  is 
utter  worldliness  ;  above  it  one  characterised  by  pharisai- 
cal  morality;  and  still  higher  a  vitalised  soil,  mellow  from 
the  sunlight,  and  adorned  with  the  springing  verdure  of 
a  fresh  humanity. 

So  with  all  priesthoods :  there  is  a  class  who  make  the 
pulpit  a  profession,  as  medicine  or  law ;  a  class  who  make 
it  a  charlatanry ;  another  a  chicanery  :  another  a  refined 
perfumery  and  jewellery;  another  who  carry  into  the  ser- 
vices of  religion  pure  hypocrisy.  Then  again,  we  behold 
the  good  natured,  kindly,  but  lax  and  easy  sensualist;  the 
fiery  zealot  and  propagandist ;  the  rigid,  chill  ascetic  ;  the 
insist er  on  ritual  as  paramount  to  doctrine ;  the  expounder 
of  the  system  as  rather  a  proposition  and  a  philosophy  ; 
and  still  beyond,  a  class  who  interpret  the  doctrine  from 
a  standpoint  of  Catholic  fellowship,  who  make  its  very 
scorpions  into  fishes,  who  turn  its  stones  into  bread,  and 
transform  its  water  into  wine. 

And  once  more,  its  sacraments  are  implements  more 
piercing  than  any  pain,  and  palliatives  more  dangerous, 
more  seductive,  more  stupefying  than  any  perfumed,  medi- 
cated poison.  The  clergyman  whose  heart  is  hollow  as 
the  tomb,  and  a  co-labourer  whose  heart  is  vital  with 
Divinity,  alike  administer  them.  The  bread  and  wine 
from  the  hand  of  the  secret  idolater  may  nourish  one 
communicant  as  with  the  body  of  holiness  and  the  blood 
of  self-sacrifice ;  the  Eucharistic  elements,  even  at  the 
pure  hands  of  the  other,  may  confirm  the  hardened  bigot 
in  a  life's  unfaith,  and  establish  the  delusions  that  rise 


S6  TJie  Bj-cath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

like  exhalations  from  the  growing  putrefaction  of  the  soul. 
The  conclusion  we  arrive  at  is,  that  truth  and  falsity,  good 
and  evil,  honesty  and  imposture,  liberty  and  slavery,  God 
and  Satan,  Heaven  and  Hell,  in  multiplicities  of  inter- 
involved  powers,  are  ramified  through  all.  That  all  have 
stairways  into  a  paradise,  all  secret  paths  into  the  deep 
Gehenna,  all  rivers  of  life  that  cleanse  and  renovate  the 
nature,  all  counter-streams  of  death  that  chill  the  spirit 
into  stone. 

The  advantage  which  the  Respirationist  possesses 
over  either  of  the  foregoing  parties  is,  first,  a  standard 
of  truth,  including  all  that  is  valid  in  church  tradition 
with  the  Catholic,  the  divine  contents  of  Scripture  with 
the  Protestant,  and  the  universal  facts  and  laws  of  nature 
with  the  Rationalist. 

"No  pent  Uticn.  contracts  our  powers, 
But  the  whole  boundless  continent  is  om-s." 

But  the  Catholic  is  not  able  to  winnow  his  traditions, 
to  separate  the  verity  from  the  imposture,  the  celestial 
from  the  infernal.  The  Protestant  is  not  able  to  enter 
into  an  accurate  analysis  of  Scripture.  In  the  exhausted 
receiver  of  his  natural  mind  the  feather  and  the  ingot 
weigh  alike.  He  is  unable  to  distinguish  fully  between 
the  historical,  the  prophetical,  and  the  allegorical  ele- 
ments ;  unable,  from  ignorance  of  any  systematic  doc- 
trine of  the  value  and  relations  of  its  symbols,  to  decipher 
those  occult  correspondences ;  unable,  from  the  absence 
of  the  laws  of  illumination  and  inspiration,  to  justify  the 
Divine  origin  of  prophecy.  He  is  like  the  savage  who 
has  become  the  possessor  of  a  theodolite  or  an  electrical 
battery — aware  that  the  metals  of  which  they  are  com- 
posed have  uses,  but  only  able  to  make  them  serve  some 


TJic  BrcatJi  of  God  with  Man.  87 

feeble  end,  as  they  are  resolved  into  their  brass  or  steel. 
The  iron,  when  hammered,  serves  him  as  a  fish-hook  or 
a  spear-point. 

If  the  theory  of  the  Protestant  were  correct,  Scripture 
would  serve,  when  faithfully  studied  by  the  conscientious 
disciple,  as  a  lucid  system  of  Divine  truth,  and  the  wise 
would  differ  no  more  in  its  interpretations  than  astro- 
nomers differ  in  their  readings  of  the  ^^  Mechanique 
Celeste.^''  Far  from  this  being  the  case,  the  antagonisms 
developed  between  the  different  schools  are  irrecon- 
cilable. But  while  the  Protestant  is  crushed  under  the 
weight  of  the  letter  and  bewildered  by  the  rushing  forces 
of  the  Spirit  of  the  Word,  the  Respirationist  enters  into 
the  possession  of  the  Scripture  as  the  child  into  his 
Father's  house ;  that  Parent  being  present  as  his  neces- 
sities require,  patient  to  explain  of  its  construction,  to 
throw  open  its  doors,  to  interpret  the  significance  of 
sculpture  and  picture ;  in  a  word,  to  indoctrinate  him  in 
tlie  use  and  peculiarity  of  its  every  treasure. 

What,  after  all,  can  the  Rationalist  know  of  nature  ? 
Its  surfaces,  but  not  its  contents ;  its  forms,  but  not  their 
origins  or  destinies.  He  lives  intellectually  in  subter- 
ranean crypts,  but  has  no  access  to  its  earthly  halls  and 
heavenly  watch-towers.  The  known  is  a  group  of  iso- 
lated points,  the  inevitably  unknown  all  that  is  beyond 
them.  We  are  far  from  underrating  the  natural  sciences, 
natural  philosophies,  increasingly  true  and  copious  in 
their  own  spheres;  but  beyond  what  is  there  to  the 
natural  reason  ?  Comte,  Parker,  take  refuge  at  last  in  a 
groundwork  of  unproved  assumptions ;  they  assume  an 
anatomy  and  physiology  of  Providence,  but  the  varied 
and  rival  assumptions  are  incapable  of  demonstration. 


88  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

This  is  also  correct  of  the  various  classes  of  Spiritists. 
Where  the  intellect  requires  assurance  and  stability,  the 
rock  proves  quicksand,  the  light  an  ignis  fatjius,  the 
uplifted  celestial  vision  a  mirage  painted  on  the  eyeball. 
But  how  with  the  Respirationist  ?  He  is  in  his  dear 
home.  It  is  firm  earth,  pure  water,  sweet  air,  and  solid, 
transparent  sky.  He  who  lives  in  the  bosom  of  his 
Maker  dwells  in  the  open  secret  of  His  work ;  for  the 
All-illumining  Intelligence  at  once  warns  him  of  the 
fallacy,  and  convinces  him  of  the  verity. 

A  second  advantage  which  the  Respirationist  pos- 
sesses is  a  Church  which  is  not  a  sect,  but  a  people; 
not  a  mechanism  constructed  from  without,  but  a  living 
organism  unfolded  from  within  ;  a  body  not  fashioned  of 
heterogeneous  materials,  but  homogeneous.  It  is  the  pro- 
perty of  a  living,  healthful  organism  to  repulse  and  cast 
out  effete  and  noxious  substances.  The  various  eccle- 
siasticisms  may  exclude  the  avowed  heretic ;  they  have 
no  process  by  which  to  separate  the  secret  one.  They 
may  exercise  a  supervision  over  the  surfaces  of  the 
morals,  but  cannot  discriminate  between  the  morality 
which  is  the  wolf's  clothing  and  that  which  is  tlie  lamb's 
personality.  Hence  the  churches  are  composed  of  the 
good  and  evil,  and  the  one  class  can  neither  exclude  nor 
absolutely  test  the  real  essentials  of  the  other.  The 
fault  is  not  with  bodies  or  individuals,  but  grows  out  of 
the  inherent  necessities  of  things. 

It  is  true  that,  in  the  early  stages  of  respiration, 
through  which  all  must  pass,  there  is  an  ever-recurring 
danger  of  relapse  into  worldliness ;  but  when  both 
character  and  constitution  are  reconstructed,  a  point  is 
reached  from  which  few  will  recede  ;  the  divine  breaths 


The  BreatJi  of  God  zvith  Man.  89 

in  their  copiousness  flowing  continually,  and  impulsing 
through  their  unitary  body,  will  so  consolidate  them  that 
it  must  be  impossible  for  any  hostile  element  to  find  a 
place;  while,  should  lapses  occur,  it  is  not  probable 
that  the  wilfi^il  transgressor  could  continue  to  breathe  the 
breath  of  life.  Even  were  existence  continued,  the  with- 
drawal of  the  Divine  breath  would  operate  as  an  organic 
disseverance  and  exclusion.  Thus  provision  is  made  for 
a  constituted  body,  consisting  wholly  of  new  men,  new 
in  the  regenerate  will  and  understanding,  new  in  the 
reconstituted  natural  soul ;  absorbing  into  its  structure 
by  attraction  all  men  of  whatever  class,  made  spiritually 
and  physically  regenerate,  and  casting  forth  by  repulsion 
everything  intrinsically  hostile  to  Divine  purity. 

A  third  advantage  is,  that  in  the  nature  of  things  neither 
adversity  nor  prosperity  can  destroy  this  vital  union, 
or  cause  it  to  decease  by  corruptions.  Prosperity  is  fatal 
to  the  religious  life  of  all  ecclesiastical  corporations.  It 
is  impossible  for  any  sect  long  to  maintain  the  height  of 
its  earliest  moral  state.  Ecclesiastical  history  demon- 
strates that  the  first  days  of  a  sect  are  spiritually  its  best 
days.  Whenever  a  religious  body  becomes  socially  digni- 
fied, numerous  and  opulent,  it  attracts  a  larger  and  larger 
class  of  mere  surface  livers,  men  and  women  of  the  world. 
The  ministry  becomes  a  profession,  and  is  sought  as  other 
professions,  from  the  distinction  to  be  obtained  by  pul- 
pit oratory,  from  the  social  advantages  which  accrue  to 
the  sacred  profession,  and  from  the  competence  which 
it  secures.  The  primitive  fervour  of  the  sect  is  quenched. 
It  becomes  involved  in  the  perpetration  and  preservation 
of  great  social  iniquities.  It  lends  its  influence  to  those 
conservative  institutions  which  confer  additional  prestige, 


90  TJie  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man. 

while  it  becomes  the  enemy  of  the  radical  reforms  that 
seek  not  merely  to  lop  the  limbs,  but  to  uproot  the  mighty 
tree  of  tyranny.  It  is  seldom  that  a  new  religious  or- 
ganism is  the  result  of  a  simple  intellectual  revolt.  Ideas 
alone  never  embody  themselves  in  institutions.  A  class 
of  fervent,  earnest  persons  are  driven  by  the  conviction 
of  the  corruption  in  the  bosom  of  their  own  religious 
society,  first  to  strive  for  its  reformation,  and  failing  in 
this,  to  leave  it,  and  unite  for  the  purpose  of  more  fully 
embodying  the  Christian  ideal.  The  corruptions  of 
Rome  prepared  Europe  for  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
and  the  corruptions  of  Protestantism  in  its  decline  are 
attended  by  Reforms  which  constantly  evolve  minor 
religious  bodies.  Still  ideas  play  a  part,  yet  commonly 
an  inferior  one. 

But  for  a  body,  composed  of  noble  spirits,  possessing 
the  Divine  life  in  the  very  circulations  of  the  frame,  to  be 
debauched  by  prosperity  is  impossible.  First,  no  world- 
ling can  live  in  its  atmosphere.  Second,  it  can  never 
compromise,  either  upon  a  radicalism  of  doctrine  or  of 
life  \  never  enter  into  a  moment's  truce  with  any  evil, 
however  plausible,  or  profitable,  or  gigantic.  It  is  op- 
posed, both  by  the  essentials  and  the  ingredients  of  its 
constitution,  to  the  entire  body  of  the  inversions  of  the 
world.  It  can,  therefore,  never  cease  to  war  against  those 
inversions  till  the  Divine  harmony  becomes  universal. 
Third,  no  man  in  whom  the  Divine  respiration  has  begun 
can  stand  still ;  he  must  advance  or  perish.  So  of  the 
body  in  which  all  are  constituents.  The  Divine  breaths 
never  pause  ;  that  body  must  advance  or  perish.  In  the 
sects,  the  form  may  subsist  after  the  spirit  has  become 
corrupt;  but  here  the  form,  for  its  existence,  depends 


TJic  Breath  of  God  zuith  Man.  91 

upon  that  spirit's  ever  growing  perfection.  There  is  no 
possibihty  for  the  repetition  of  the  experience  either  of 
Protestantism  or  of  Rome. 

A  fourth  and  final  point.  In  the  old  sects  hereditary 
depravity  is  transmitted  ;  parents  do  not  bequeath  to 
their  children  physical  harmony,  equilibrium,  sanity,  and 
purity.  But  offspring  born  of  parents  who  possess  the 
Divine  harmony  insphered  in  the  spirit,  and  embodied  in 
the  new  natural  soul,  can  impart  to  their  progeny  nothing 
but  good.  It  is  a  new  beginning  of  the  generations.  No 
mother  will  bear  a  child  like  Aaron  Burr,  whose  gigantic 
depravity  sprang  through  the  loins  of  a  succession  of 
pious  ancestors.  Goodness  will  ripen  from  goodness  in 
the  long  processions  of  the  ages. 

Heaven  and  Hell,  words  of  light  and  mystery,  words 
of  bale  and  terror,  exercised  in  all  ages  a  potent  charm, 
challenging  for  their  elucidation  the  powers  of  all  philo- 
sophy, and  moving  with  a  various  force  on  every  moral 
and  intellectual  faculty  of  man.  The  more  recent  thought 
of  Christendom  has  narrowed  each  conception  to  its 
least  possible  limits,  while  the  coarse  theory  of  the  Posi- 
tivist  reduces  each  to  a  spectral  image.  Practically, 
almost  all  men  live  at  present  for  aims  and  objects 
limited  to  the  mundane  sphere.  That  time  is  the  seed 
field  of  eternity,  is  a  thought  confined  to  the  few.  The 
imagination  loves  to  be  cheated  with  brilliant  spectacles, 
and  the  most  popular  pulpit  oratory  is  that  which  dazzles 
the  eye  with  a  profusion  of  histrionic  splendours.  The 
deepest  experience  cannot  be  communicated  through  the 
channels  of  either  the  pulpit  or  the  religious  press,  for 
the  reason  that  both  are  committed  to  the  eternal  com- 
monplace.    No  higher  thought  can  find  access   to  the 


92  TJic  B7'catJi  of  God  with  Mati. 

popular  mind,  drugged  as  it  with  the  opiates  or  stimu- 
lated with  the  fiery  draughts  of  a  purely  artificial  theology. 
The  so-called  liberal  classes,  as  a  si7ie  qua  non,  demand 
that  every  original  statement  shall  deny  the  incarnation 
of  the  Divine  Man.  The  thinker  who  proceeds  upon  the 
premise  that  Christ  is  God,  finds  here  no  audience.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Orthodox  public,  under  the  discipline 
of  their  leaders,  as  rigorously  require  that  no  statement 
shall  contravene  their  cherished  tenet,  that  it  is  not  possi- 
ble to  know  anything  of  Heaven  or  Hell  except  through 
gross  natural  interpretation  of  the  verbiage  of  Scripture. 

The  man  who  enters  into  and  passes  through  the  pre- 
paratory stages  of  the  Divine  breath,  requires  a  more 
comprehensive  statement,  both  of  the  celestial  and  the 
infernal  worlds.  We  now  proceed  to  define  their  real 
significance.  Properly  speaking,  there  is  no  Heaven 
possible,  subjectively,  but  that  of  human  nature  glorified 
by  indwelling  Deity.  No  Hell,  subjectively,  but  that  of 
human  nature  occupying  the  antagonistic  pole.  The 
good  man,  divested  of  all  evil,  embodies  the  celestial 
state,  possesses  it  plenarily  within  itself,  breathes  in  its 
breath,  thinks  in  its  intelligence,  wills  in  its  virtue,  and 
enjoys  in  the  interminable  ranges  of  its  beatitudes.  The 
true  conception  of  an  angel  is  that  of  the  rectified'  and 
balanced  man,  whose  state  of  moral  excellence  has 
ripened  into  an  immortal  habitude. 

Heaven,  objectively,  is  the  art-world  of  the  soul  :  not 
a  vacuum,  because  the  works  of  the  Spirit  are  substantial 
creations  ;  not  a  floating  fantasy  mirrored  from  within, 
because  the  spirit  in  its  determinate  activities  continually 
evolves  the  essential  qualities  of  substance  into  its  own 
space.     Within  the  natural  home,  taste  delights  to  gather 


The  Breath  of  God  ivith  Man.  93 

beautiful  adornments ;  man  surrounds  himself,  so  far  as 
possible,  with  the  objects  that  portray  his  bosom  loves. 
The  effort  of  art  is  perpetually  to  wed  sentiment  to  sub- 
stance. Every  man  is  first  incarnate  in  flesh,  and  second 
inworlded  in  nature. 

We  know  little  of  the  nature  of  our  incarnation,  first, 
because  the  conjunction  bet^veen  the  spirit  and  the  body 
is  one  not  of  concords,  but  of  discords,  owing  to  the 
disorders  and  casualties  which  have  befallen  the  race : 
and  second,  because  the  faculties  which  man  was  sure  to 
per\'ert  have  been  temporarily  eclipsed,  until  such  a  time 
as  Divine  restorative  powers  might  be  let  down  into  the 
world.  Through  those  restorative  agencies,  man  as  a 
spirit  first  becomes  re-incarnated,  and  secondly  re-in- 
worlded  organically.  He  then  experiences  the  powers 
and  the  delights  of  Heaven,  and,  by  the  contrast  of 
opposite  conditions,  becomes  sensible  of  the  constituents 
that  enter  into  the  substance  and  the  insanity  of  Hell. 

The  delights  which  on  earth  have  a  physical  basis,  in 
Heaven  have  the  same.  This  is  true  also  of  those  which 
have  an  intellectual  or  moral  foundation.  In  order  that 
the  man  of  the  new  age  may  be  pleasantly  exhilarated 
and  refreshed  by  suitable  presentations  of  the  state  into 
which  the  respirations  of  our  Lord  will  finally  uplift  him, 
my  eyes  were  opened,  and  I  was  permitted  to  translate 
into  natural  language  one  of  those  volumes  which  exist 
in  Heaven ;  its  title.  The  Pleasures  of  the  Angels.  By 
considering  that  which  now  follows,  the  reader  will  form 
a  clear  idea  of  the  object  which  the  Divine  Father  seeks 
to  obtain,  especially,  by  His  present  providential  dealings 
with  those  whom  He  visits  in  the  recreation,  alike  of  the 
spirit  and  its  frame. 


94  The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Man. 

The  Pleasures  of  the  Angels. 

Constantius  and  Constantia,  a  wedded  pair,  at  home, 
received  upon  the  five-hundredth  anniversary  of  their 
celestial  nuptial  union,  as  inmost  bosom  guest,  the  Crea- 
tor of  their  spirits,  and  the  eternal  Restorer  of  their  joys. 
He  filled  at  once  their  twofold  person.  His  hands  were 
in  the  hands  that  touched  each  other ;  His  eyes  within 
the  eyes  that  looked  upon  each  other ;  His  image  in  the 
countenances  that  reflected  unknown  beatitudes.  And 
Constantius  was  a  man-child  in  whom  willed  and  spake 
All-Father,  and  Constantia  was  a  woman-child  in  whom 
responded  All-Mother.  And  from  the  inmost  oneness  of 
the  Divine  Being  they  were  embosomed  each  in  each,  as 
loveliness  in  loveliness,  innocence  in  innocence,  and 
blessedness  in  blessedness. 

In  that  sacred  interpervasion  they  were  conscious  at 
once  of  unity  and  duality,  of  sex  in  all  the  degrees  of 
spirit,  and  thence  in  all  the  attributes  of  person ;  of 
eternal  youth,  of  immortal  vigour,  of  pure  affection,  trans- 
lucent intelligence,  and  exquisite  sensation.  In  possess- 
ing each  other,  they  possessed  the  Lord,  and  knew  the 
innumerable  joys  that  move  within  the  harmonious  infi- 
nitude of  Deity  ;  and  they  received  power  unitedly  from 
that  thrice  holy  communion,  to  clothe  in  the  words  of 
Heaven  that  which  is  herein  written  concerning  the 
angelic  joys. 

We  began  our  life  upon  the  earth  in  the  midst  of 
penury,  war,  ignorance,  and  oppression.  In  childhood 
our  Lord  removed  us  from  mortality.  At  ages  which 
correspond  respectively  to  nineteen  and  seventeen,  our 
garments  were  given  us,  called  beauty  ;  our  shoes,  called 


Tlic  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  95 

innocence ;  our  crowns  and  coronets,  called  knowledge 
and  perception;  becoming  members  of  the  youthful 
society  in  a  Heaven  called  "  Respiria,"  because  it  is  that 
expanse  which  corresponds  to  the  breathing  organs  of 
the  frame.  We  were  of  that  genius  which  is  called  com- 
posite. The  fire-Adam  of  the  will,  a  resident  for  the  Fire- 
Christ  of  affection  ;  the  light- Adam  of  the  understanding, 
a  habitation  for  the  Fire-Christ  of  intelligence ;  and  the 
breath-Adam  of  the  body,  the  temple  for  the  Fire-Christ 
of  sensation,  Three  in  One.  But,  within  the  fire-Eve, 
dwelt  the  Fire-Christ-woman  of  the  delight  of  affection ; 
and  within  the  light- Eve,  dwelt  the  Christ-woman  of  the 
delight  of  wisdom  ;  and  within  the  breath-Eve,  dwelt  the 
Christ-woman  of  the  delight  of  sensation.  Three  in  One. 
Thus  it  is  with  all  who  inherit  into  the  life  of  the  Divine 
Spirit.  So,  giving  Himself,  our  Creator  prepares  the  two 
to  become  one  heart,  one  mind,  one  body,  one  love, 
one  wisdom,  one  felicity. 

Blessed  are  all  they  who  enter  into  the  bosom  felicity 
of  the  Infinite  Love  in  unison  with  its  own  Infinite  Wis- 
dom. The  home  of  Constantius,  where  he  dwelt  with 
many  youthful  brethren,  was  an  embodiment  of  the  fire- 
truth  of  the  Fire-Christ's  love,  the  light-truth  of  the  Light- 
Christ's  wisdom,  the  breath-truth  of  the  Breath-Christ's 
person.  This  wrought  a  triune  firmament  for  the  stars  of 
three  heavens,  and  midway  in  the  orient  shone  the  visible 
sun  of  the  Divine  Presence,  giving  light  to  all. 

And  when  Constantius  breathed  in  the  fire-heart  of  his 
love,  he  respired  in  unison  with  the  fire-heart  of  the 
highest,  the  Celestial  Heaven.  It  was  the  heart  that 
breathed,  the  heart  of  the  immortal  frame ;  and  in  the 
breath  were  songs,  odours,  and  festivities.  ' 


96  TJlc  Breath  of  God  with  Mati. 

But  Constantia  dwelt  in  a  Xwm  paradise  with  many- 
virgin  companions.  In  the  Motherhood  of  All-embracing 
Deity  was  that  blessed  home.  Her  eyes,  dark  and  lumi- 
nous, beheld  the  woman  firmament,  and  saw  within  the 
day's  luminary  the  Woman  Infinite.     There  she  sang — 

Woman's  heart  and  woman's  hand, 

Pure  and  virgin  and  alone, 
By  the  Woman's  arch  are  spanned. 

Circled  by  the  Woman  zone. 

Nothing  there  may  interfuse 

With  the  light  that  flows  beside, 
Odours,  harmonies,  nor  hues  ; 

Being  flows  with  single  tide. 

E'en  the  Father  God  appears 

Through  the  Eternal  Mother's  face, 

Till  the  blooming  vestal  years 

Robe  and  crown  the  maiden  grace. 

Heavenly  King  and  Heavenly  Queen, 

Father,  Mother,  two  in  one. 
First  in  Deity  are  seen. 

Beaming  from  the  Bridal  Sun. 

The  true  order  of  the  angels  requires  for  its  perfection 
that  every  spirit  shall  be  from  inmosts  conjoined  to  its 
eternal  counterpart,  since  the  harmonies  of  the  Heavens 
are  unfolded  through  the  unison  of  two  hearts  in  one 
love,  two  minds  in  one  truth,  and  two  bosoms  in  one 
coactive  joy.  Otherwise  the  Heavens  could  not  cohere 
together,  their  substances  would  be  dissolved,  their  fir- 
maments folded  up,  their  flowers  never  multiply,  their 
orchards  bear  no  fruits,  and  their  birds  of  song  be 
silent. 

In  that  sweet  Paradise,  in  whose  bosom  Constantia 


The  Breath  of  Cod  with  Man.  97 

had  lier  home,  was  an  inmost  labyrinth.  Thither,  led  by 
the  inward  breathings  of  the  Mother  Deity,  she  retired  to 
meditate  in  the  day  of  the  utmost  perfection  of  maidenly 
innocence.  The  festive  loves  within  her  bosom  sang, 
accompanying  their  voices  in  an  audible  refrain  with 
sweet-toned  instruments,  vibrating  through  the  bosom, 
and  encompassing  her  in  a  chiming  atmosphere.  The 
pavilion  to  where  she  was  conducted  was  illumined  from 
within  by  the  light  of  the  purity  of  the  Infinite  Woman- 
hood, and  there  she  hetird  the  voice  of  AU-Alother,  sing- 
ing "Daughter, first  born  within  my  own  love,  and  sheltered 
beneath  my  Word,  my  joy  cannot  be  full  in  thee  till  thou 
art  given  to  thy  inmost  bosom's  twin  created  spirit ;  thy 
life 's  life,  as  thou  art  his."  And  while  these  words  were 
being  spoken  in  her  ear,  she  looked  up  and  beheld  a 
youth  who  had  been  conducted  through  the  same  laby- 
rinth by  the  breathings  of  All-Father.  He  saw  her,  and  in- 
stantly knew  that  she  was  formed  as  the  love  of  his  love,  the 
wisdom  of  his  wisdom,  and  the  person  of  his  person  ;  while 
she,  in  turn,  with  tender  innocent  delight  beheld  in  him  the 
image  of  her  soul's  love,  the  likeness  of  her  spirit's  truth, 
and  the  expression  of  her  breathing  thought  in  form. 

We  shrink  from  repeating  these  high  strains.  To  cast 
them  upon  the  stream  of  the  world's  thought  is  like  throw- 
ing a  wreath  of  white  lilies  upon  the  black  current  of  a 
sewer.  In  nothing  is  man's  depravity  so  evident  as  in 
the  coarseness  of  his  thought  concerning  sexual  love. 
This  vein  of  his  ordinary  sensation  is  obviously  a  jet  of 
the  infernal  fire;  yet  this  subject  cannot  be  passed  over, 
for  out  of  it  are  all  the  issues  of  renovated  life.  Con- 
stantius  and  Constantia,  two  in  one  !  The  pure  woman  is 
the  receptive  form  for  the  indwelling  of  the  Infinite  Woman- 

G 


98  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

hood,  the  pure  man  for  the  Infinite  Manhood.  As  there 
is  an  infinite  play  and  procession  of  divine  affections  be- 
tween the  Love  and  Wisdom  of  Deity,  so  the  man  and 
the  woman,  constituting  in  marriage  unity  one  composite 
individuahty,  endlessly  reciprocate  in  each  other's  bosoms 
the  delights  which  descend  from  Deity  and  dwell  within 
the  wondrous  frame. 

It  is  obvious  that  neither  Rome  or  Protestantism  incul- 
cate this  faith,  nor  do  they  leave  it  as  an  august  problem 
to  be  solved  within  the  portals  of  a  better  life.  Rome  is 
essentially  in  its  theory  monastic.  jNIarriage  is  a  permitted 
impurity,  or  at  least,  in  point  of  holiness,  far  below  celi- 
bacy. Rome  never  twined  a  wreath  of  celestial  flowers 
for  Hymen's  brow ;  never  chanted  a  heavenly  epithala- 
mium;  never  overshadowed  the  nuptial  couch  with  reverent 
wings ;  never  diffused  a  sanctifying  power  to  exorcise  the 
genii  who  invade  and  desecrate  its  mysteries.  It  leaves 
the  sweetest  of  all  human  affections  in  the  grave,  where 
the  body  perishes,  and  inscribes  the  sentence  of  everlast- 
ing oblivion  above  the  mute  remains. 

But  if  Rome  is  monastic,  Protestantism  is  corporeal. 
From  a  celestial  point  of  view  its  ideas  resemble,  not 
winged  cherubs,  not  hymning  seraphs,  but  beasts  and 
creeping  things.  It  marries  for  time,  it  divorces  for 
eternity.  As  a  worldly  convenience,  a  temporal  morality, 
a  present  divine  ordinance,  it  recognises  a  mere  form  of 
union,  and  does  well  when  it  insists  upon  its  mainte- 
nance, denouncing  the  violations  of  its  ordinances  with 
extreme  spiritual  i)enalties.  But,  while  it  consecrates 
and  ratifies  the  external  bond,  and  for  tliat  matter  never 
hesitates  to  pronounce  its  awful  binding  phrase,  though 
every  consideration  of  moral  fitness,  every  higher  har- 


The  Breath  of  God  ivitJi  Man.  qq 

mony  is  obviously  violated, — it  betrays  too  often  the 
impurity  of  its  internal  thought,  by  denouncing  as  carnal 
the  doctrine  that  finds  in  Heaven  a  unison  of  two  kin- 
dred chastities  in  one  beatitude.  The  rejection  of  this 
faith  from  its  pulpits,  the  denial  of  it  there,  fatally  dis- 
proves its  claim  to  be  considered  as  the  church  of  God 
in  any  absolute  and  final  sense.  There  is  a  point  be- 
yond which  no  man,  no  woman  can  advance,  in  the 
reception  or  assimilation  of  Divine  breaths,  without*  a 
knowledge  of  the  doctrine  of  the  conjugial  order  in  its 
truth,  and  a  bowing  down  of  the  whole  being  before  its 
majestic  purity. 

Neither  Rome  nor  Protestantism  have  any  conception 
of  chastity  as  to  its  essence.  The  highest  Romish  idea 
is  that  of  the  utter  disseverance  of  the  sexes.  The 
highest  Protestant  idea  is  that  of  a  sexual  union  between 
partners,  upon  the  ground  of  natural  desire.  The  popular 
philosophy  of  the  day  follows  out  this  train  of  thought. 
The  basal  organs  are  called  animal,  the  coronal  organs 
intellectual  and  moral.  The  organs  of  sexual  desire  are 
located  in  the  lower  brain,  and  therefore  the  solicitations 
of  sex  are  considered  brutal  and  corporeal.  Without 
doubt  almost  all  youths,  almost  all  married  men,  enter 
into  wedlock  with  this  idea,  and  it  is  as  much  a  part  of 
the  popular  thought  as  that  two  and  two  make  four. 

When  the  Divine  breaths  have  so  pervaded  the  ner- 
vous structures  that  the  higher  attributes  of  sensation 
begin  to  waken  from  their  immemorial  torpor,  and  to 
react  against  disease,  a  sixth  sense  is  as  evident  as  hear- 
ing is  to  the  ear,  or  sight  to  vision.  It  is  distributed 
through  the  entire  frame.  So  exquisitely  does  it  pervade 
the   hands    that   the   slightest   touch   declares   who  are 

G    2 


ICO  The  Breath  of  God  zvith  Alan. 

chaste  and  who  are  unchaste.  Names  it  has  many, 
according  to  its  quaUties  ;  let  us  here  call  it  "  a  sense  of 
chastity."  God  is  the  Infinite  Chastity.  If  we  may 
style  Him  the  All-powerful,  the  All-merciful,  for  the 
same  reason  we  adore  Him  as  the  All-chaste.  The 
chastity  of  man  is  derived  from  the  specific  chastity  of 
the  Infinite  Wisdom,  and  that  of  woman  from  the  In- 
finite Love.  United  counterparts,  angels  of  the  universal 
Heaven,  celebrate  this  chastity  in  their  eternal  coales- 
cence, and  this  order  is  initiated  upon  every  earth  in  its 
beginning ;  while,  except  as  evil  is  initiated,  it  character- 
izes the  universal  race. 

But  within  this  sense  of  chastity  nuptial  love  has  its 
dwelling-place.  So  utterly  hostile  is  it  by  nature  to  what 
the  Avorld  understands  by  desire  and  passion,  that  the 
waftings  of  an  atmosphere,  bearing  these  elements  in  its 
bosom,  affects  it  with  loathing,  with  mortal  anguish,  and 
with  a  dreadful  horror.  If  passion  is  in  the  glance,  the 
darts  of  the  eye  are  as  poisoned  javelins.  If  passion  is 
in  the  inflexions  of  the  voice,  the  tones  become  as  the 
hissing  of  vipers.  If  passion  is  in  the  magnetic  fluids  of 
the  hands,  their  touch  is  as  the  stinging  of  ants,  the 
biting  of  vitriol.  If  passion  is  in  the  emanations  of  the 
frame,  their  contact  is  as  a  cold  plague,  a  living  rotten- 
ness. This  sense  of  chastity  literally  clothes  every  nerve. 
A  living,  sensitive  garment,  without  spot  or  scam,  it 
invests  the  frame  of  the  universal  sensations. 

One  born  a  thief  requires  a  specific  re-birth  to  become 
honest ;  but  all  require  a  specific  re-birth  in  order  to 
become  chaste.  All  bodies  of  our  earth  are  hereditarily 
and  organically  unclean.  In  consequence  of  the  sup- 
pression of  tlie  sense  of  chastity,  marriage  unions  on 


The  Breath  of  God  with  Man.  loi 

earth  are  without  guarantee  as  to  their  internal  and 
eternal  ground.  Doctrinally,  the  young  of  both  sexes 
are  without  defence.  A  pleasing  person  attracts  the  eye, 
a  magnetic  radiation  penetrates  the  bosom  and  calls 
forth  soft  emotions.  The  two  natural  souls  desire  each 
other,  and  at  length  commingle  their  elements.  This  is 
the  usual  ground  of  marriages  of  inclination.  ^Marriages 
of  convenience  are  still  lower,  being  mere  questions  of 
bargain  and  sale.  A  few  nobler  natures  are  united  from 
mutual  respect  for  characters,  s}Tnpathy  of  tastes,  and 
fine  harmony  of  dispositions  ;  these  are,  however,  ex- 
ceptional. We  are  not  to  forget  that  the  lines  of  Provi- 
dence run  tlirough  all  the  world,  and  it  may  be  found 
that,  in  many  instances,  true  counterparts  are  really  con- 
joined in  external  relations,  each  ignorant  of  the  blessed 
fact.  No  church,  no  sect,  no  philosophy  in  all  the 
world,  has  power  to  discriminate  in  a  single  instance 
between  what  are  temporal  and  what  are  eternal  unions. 
Constantia,  the  maiden,  dwelt  apart  with  her  virgin 
companions.  Young  daughter  of  the  holy  breath,  this 
lesson  thine.  From  the  eternal  relations  of  male  and 
female,  truth  and  goodness,  the  young  virgin,  in  the 
sacred  recesses  of  consciousness,  desires  to  find  the  mate. 
Our  words  are  not  designed  for  those  who  live  contented 
in  their  natural  respirations.  The  open  respiring  maiden 
will  see  the  unseemhness,  the  immodesty  of  presenting 
herself  as  an  implied  or  possible  expectant  in  the  society 
of  her  youthful  compeers,  while  as  yet  the  hereditary 
impurities  of  her  constitution  linger  even  in  conjunction 
with  the  atoms  of  the  frame.  The  merely  natural  maiden, 
a  mixed  form  of  two  opposites,  ventures  in  the  beguiling 
path  of  courtship ;  her  light  is  no  higher,  and  she  is 
judged  according  to  it.     But  for  one  who  has  received 


102  The  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

the  better  part,  it  is  sacrilegious  to  invite  or  permit  the 
attentions  of  a  lover  till  first  the  sense  of  purity  has 
become  full  fonned  and  constitutional.  May  we  not 
say  more,  till  soul  and  body  have  both  become  one 
purity,  and  eVery  degree  of  the  organism  a  vital  senso- 
rium,  hallowed,  energised,  completed  in  the  chastity  of 
God. 

Constantius  dwelt  alone  ;  young  brother,  this  for  thee. 
The  breaths  of  God  make  bare  the  depths  of  hereditary 
evil.  We  would  not  touch  a  flower  with  stains  upon  the 
fingers  ;  the  awful,  high-blooming  flower  of  virgin  woman- 
hood, filling  its  sacred  chalice  from  the  nepenthe  of  the 
Heavens,  who  shall  venture  to  put  forth  the  finger  of  the 
thought  toward  it,  till  evil  has  been  excluded  from  the 
frame?  Constantius  waited.  He  became  a  living  re- 
pository of  strength  and  valour  and  magnanimity  and 
devotion  and  obedience.  He  walked  with  God,  nor 
sought  to  penetrate  with  the  curious  eye  into  the  hearts 
of  the  celestial  virgins.  He  walked  with  God,  and  in 
the  hour  of  his  fitness,  All-Father  led  him  to  his  own. 

But  one  says,  "Waiting  is  hard."  The  answer  is, 
Those  in  whom  the  respirations  of  God  have  descended, 
who  are  not  willing  to  attain  to  perfect  bodily  purity 
before  entering  into  the  wedded  state,  are  not  fit  for  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  probability  is  that  they  will  find 
their  names  erased  from  the  record  of  the  inheritors  of 
the  Divine  kingdom  with  man,  and  the  sin  of  presump- 
tion be  written  over  against  them. 

Why  should  they  not  pass  together  tlirougli  the  toil- 
some stages,  a  mutual  help,  solace  and  support  ?  First 
from  the  wrong  liable  to  ensue  to  j^osterity.  During  the 
beginnings  of  physical  regeneration,  the  natural  soul  is 
perturbed,  and  the  latent  evils  of  a  hundred  generations 


TJie  BreatJi  of  God  witJi  Man.  103 

stirred  up  in  the  most  intimate  and  vital  chambers  of  tlie 
system.  These  increments,  which  the  system  is  casting 
out,  inevitably  become  so  many  vital  seats  of  evil  in  the 
babe.  By  precipitate  nuptials,  the  ancestral  depravity  is 
transmitted  into  new  creations.  By  nuptials  strictly  in 
the  consequences  of  an  absolute  purification,  the  river  of 
hereditary  depravity  finds  no  outlet,  and  the  children 
reap  as  the  parents  have  sown  for  them.  The  voices  of 
the  unborn  ones  ask  for  bread;  shall  we  give  them  a 
stone  ?  For  fish ;  shall  we  render  them  scorpions  ? 
There  are  permitted  exceptions,  where  virgins  have  been 
spiritually  crushed  and  physically  weakened  through  the 
ravages  of  evil  spirits,  and  when,  unable  by  themselves 
to  maintain  rationality,  the  Lord  permits  the  counterpart 
to  appear  for-  the  purpose  of  preventing  them  from  deli- 
rium and  destruction.  Other  exceptions  may  doubtless 
exist,  but  the  law  is  uniform  as  given  above. 

Constantius  and  Constantia  recognised  each  other ; 
regenerated  spirits  in  recreated  bodies,  possessed,  per- 
meated, vitalized,  and  guided  by  the  Lord.  What  solid 
ground  of  nuptials  !  Spirit  of  ancient  Eden,  spirit  that 
livest  in  the  soul  of  the  world,  come  forth,  clasp  them 
in  all  sweet,  natural  airs,  lead,  through  the  rehabilitated 
frame,  the  long  procession  of  the  harmonies,  for  these 
are  thine.  Spirit  of  the  sun,  whose  beams  are  living 
entities  of  light  and  heat,  who  bringest  fertility,  and  dis- 
sipatest  blight,  and  makest  beautiful  the  earth  for  the 
endless  bridals  of  the  still  renewing  year ;  spirit  of  the 
sun,  let  thy  quickening  essence  delight  to  move  in 
rhythmic  dances  through  the  jocund  frame.  They  have 
come  up  from  great  tribulation  ;  they  have  washed  their 
robes  and  made  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  ; 
they  follow  the  Lord  whithersoever  He  goeth,  for  they 


104  TJie  Breath  of  God  with  Man. 

are  virgin,  pure  from  the  contaminations  of  mankind. 
Father  God,  Mother  God,  unite  them  in  every  wisdom's 
man-iage  and  every  love's  pure  nuptials ;  they  in  Thee,  O 
Lord,  and  Thou  in  them,  that  they  may  be  made  perfect 
in  one.  If  Heaven  is  founded  in  conjugial  love,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  the  Divine  kingdom  cannot  be  established  with- 
out the  consent  of  corresponding  conditions  and  relations. 
If  in  Heaven  the  basis  of  social  order  is  marital  order,  so 
must  it  be  below.  If  there  all  the  senses  are  completed 
and  included  in  the  sense  of  chastity,  so  must  it  be 
below.  If  that  sense  of  chastity  is  there  the  body  for 
the  spirit  of  conjugial  desire,  so  must  it  be  below.  If 
the  corporeal  element  of  passion  is  excluded  from  the 
nuptial  senses,  so  must  it  be  below.  If  the  utterly  pure 
alone  are  permitted  to  enter  into  the  Divine  state  in- 
volved in  the  nuptial  union,  so  must  it  be  below.  If  our 
Lord  there  provides  and  orders  marriages  which  are 
conjugial  for  his  renovated  children,  so  must  it  be  below. 

"  Then  come  the  world's  gi^eat  bridals  chaste  and  cahii, 
Tlicn  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human  kind." 

The  doctrines  here  enunciated  embody  the  cardinal 
principles  of  religion,  in  forms  made  comprehensible  to 
every  earnest  seeker  for  the  renovation  both  of  the  spirit 
and  the  soul.  The  path  is  marked  out,  the  way  is  opened  ; 
"and  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come,  and  let  him  that 
heareth  say,  Come,  and  let  him  that  is  athirst  come,  and 
wh.osoevcr  will,  let  him  take  the  water  of  life  freely." 


Butler  &  Tanner,  Tlic  bdwood  I'riiitiiiK  Works,  Froinc,  and  London. 


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